


When the Weather Breaks

by sierraadeux



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010, Alternate Universe - College/University, Characters Play Dungeons & Dragons, Christmas, Drinking, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Recent Grad Phil, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Snowed In, Uni Student Dan, big old group of nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 66,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27813181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sierraadeux/pseuds/sierraadeux
Summary: Sitting across from Phil on that worn out velvet Starbucks sofa, sharing sickeningly sweet coffees and what they would like to think were hushed giggles, was the first time Dan felt a glimpse at what real love could feel like.orPerception checks, pining, and peppermint mochas.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 272
Kudos: 198





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 2020 am i right???  
> this whole thing started a year back with my determination to write the cheesy gay rom com of my dreams... despite literally never writing before. 420k+ *puts on shades* words later, safe to say i've written a few words or so since then. and so in the spirit of my roots and the spirit itself, i decided literally nothing (apocalypse pending) would stop me from making this tradition.  
> bit of a different one, this one, bit weird, bit stereotypically new, bit Very Much Not Pre-written. you might see me every day, you might lose me for a few, but man i _will_ tell this story by christmas so you might as well come along for the ride !  
> i'm like very very very certain you don't need any extensive knowledge about d&d to follow (i barely do) but def feel free to come shout at me if you get lost!!!!  
> (title of course nabbed from the wonder years hoodie weather)

“Smells like snow.” 

Phil’s following right behind him, makes the observation with an audibly deep intake of breath and the muffled zip of his coat. 

Dan takes in a breath, humors him because he thinks he may very well have been put on this earth for the sole purpose of humoring Phil Lester, and flips the hood of his parka over his head with the frigid air in his lungs. His hands find his pockets under the guise of trapping their warmth, but he’s really just thumbing at the little strip of paper with Phil’s name on it in his left hand. 

“How can it _smell_ like snow?” Dan shakes his head, feet taking off in slow steps while Phil covers his own head with the fluffy monstrosity that is his hood. 

“You can’t smell it?” Phil asks, his head snaps to the side to look at Dan quizzically as they fall into step—away from the little jingle that means PJ and John have just locked up, towards the Starbucks a few shops over. 

They both turn, both lift a hand from the inside of slow-warming jacket pockets, and third and final goodbyes are shouted with laughter that’s carried up and over Manchester streets. Dan’s chest stings and constricts in that way only deep breaths in cold air brings on, both pairs making their respective ways in opposite directions. 

PJ and John turn left of the shop, and they’ll part two streets down, where John will disappear into his building and PJ will cut across the park to his flat.

Dan and Phil are always right—have been since the hours after the first time Dan stepped through the little odd shop’s doors. They take a right, then they’ll both disappear into the Starbucks a few minutes down the street—dependent on their pace, of course. Sometimes it’s slow, sometimes it’s quick, sometimes they’re too engrossed in whatever conversation they’re having for Dan to take note. 

But it’s mostly dependent on the weather. When it’s absolutely chucking it down, they’ll run—turned into heaving, drippy messes of themselves once they’ve made it through the doors. When the air is that type of autumn brisk that excites Dan, or when the sun warms their skin in that comfortable hug of a way, they take their time with it. 

Today it’s right in the middle, their shared natural pace. 

Dan breathes in again, feeling it harsh in his chest. 

“I smell… stale beer and cold,” Dan states, picking up as if they were never interrupted. They weren’t really, something done so routinely couldn’t be considered an interruption, Dan thinks. 

He pulls his hands from his pockets, wraps them around his chest and hunches his shoulders. It’s quite cold. Colder than it was on his walk to the shop earlier, when the sun was just dipping from the sky. 

“Exactly!” Phil catches his eye and grins wide, as if he’s just made perfect sense. Dan shakes his head, smiles down at their feet in a way he knows is saying all too much with no words at all. 

He doesn’t get it, but he gets it, because it’s Phil. That’s kind of their thing, he guesses. Or at least one of them. They seem to have a lot of things, but he tries so very hard to not overthink all of it. 

And by that Dan means Phil holds up a permanent residence in his brain. He pitched a tent that one October night a year ago and he seems to keep upgrading. It’s like full blown glamping now, one of those big sturdy things with multiple rooms and—inexplicably—a kitchen and a toilet. Not like an RV though, it doesn’t have any wheels and it definitely isn’t capable of traveling anywhere as it sits. 

Dan could take the stakes out, he reckons. He tried to at first, when the whole thing was much more flimsy and could have easily been taken out by the wind. But thinking that he wants to and _actually_ wanting to are two very different things. 

It’s more permanent now, but still not impossible to move. Dan lets it stay. 

They bump shoulders and Dan kicks a rock along the pavement until it eventually rolls its way into the street—entirely the fault of a particularly strong kick at Phil’s insistence that there’s zero correlation between his D&D character and being a furry. It’s not the first time they’ve had the debate, and they know it won’t be the last. 

“You’re just jealous you can’t fly.” Phil tilts his chin up towards Dan with a jab at his side. 

Dan makes a show of rolling his eyes. “Having wings doesn’t make you not a furry. Actually-” 

There’s another shove at Dan’s shoulder. He bumps Phil back as they break off into laughter, leaning into his space for just a few seconds too long, if only to soak in the warmth he finds there. 

“If anything, horny boys with big tails are the _most_ furry.” 

Dan snorts. “The _most furry_?” he repeats. Then, softer as they approach the shop, “Also they’re not a boy.” He steps forward with a meek smile, pulling the heavy door open for Phil to step through. 

“Right.” Phil nods, returning a similar expression. “Thanks,” he hums as he walks past, cheeks bitten pink by the cold. “Think I still have elf on the brain.” 

“Of course you do,” Dan says, sounding far too fond to be teasing. He thinks that first campaign just makes him soft—something about learning the ropes and all that, he guesses. 

They both let go of a visible shiver with the hot air that blasts over them before the door swings shut. Dan feels the tip of his nose start to defrost as it’s filled with the warmed nutty smell of Starbucks an hour before close. 

“Definitely horny though, I’ll give you that,” Dan says, probably far too loud, unzipping his parka. 

Phil looks at him, scandalized as if the same words didn’t just come out of his own mouth seconds before. “Shut up!” he hisses, but there’s a cheeky glint in his eyes and a smirk tugging at his lips as they step up to the counter. 

“You like it,” Dan teases in a whisper. That earns another whack at his shoulder. He takes it with pride, despite rolling his eyes one more time before looking to the usual barista who now knows to tune out most of their nonsense. 

“Two caramel-”

“Wait!” Phil tugs at the sleeve of Dan’s jacket, stepping that little bit forward so he’s pressed right up against the counter. 

Dan looks at Phil and his tilted chin with a lifted brow. There’s a similar questioning expression on the barista’s face on the other side of the counter. The order is really a formality at this point, they rarely stray from their usual. 

Phil is, apparently, straying. He looks away from the menu board, smiling at the barista. 

“I’ll have a peppermint mocha, extra whip,” Phil turns his head, flashing that bright smile Dan’s way, “and he’ll have a gingerbread latte.” 

Dan scrunches his brows, looking bemused. “Oh, will I?” 

Phil’s smile grows wider. Dan swears he sees a fucking twinkle in his eye as he nods, then promptly turns back to the counter. 

“Extra whip for him too,” he stage whispers to the barista. She, at least, affords him a laugh while Dan repeatedly whacks his shoulder with his card to pay. 

Dan trades his card for Phil’s bag and coat, making his way over to their corner by the window to stake their claim. They trade off like this, pretty much every week, despite not needing to rush to their favorite table considering there’s never any more than two people in the coffee shop at this time of night. They do it anyway though, some sort of tradition starting that very first day where Phil rushed a tenner across the counter before Dan could even get his wallet out of his jeans. 

He had smiled at him, bumped his hip against the counter and flicked his hair out of his eyes before telling Dan to wait for their drinks while he took his coat and grabbed them a table. It was the one by the window, both their coats tossed on the arm of the dusty looking loveseat, and that same smirk of a smile Dan is walking away from now looking up at him from the sofa as he approached with two steaming mugs. 

Dan once told himself—that very night actually—that he wouldn’t be doing any of it again. 

Sitting across from Phil on that worn out velvet Starbucks sofa, sharing sickeningly sweet coffees and what they would like to think were hushed giggles, was the first time Dan felt a glimpse at what real love could feel like. The kind of love and connection he wanted. The kind he would have been foolish to think he needed. The kind that wasn’t acceptable of him. 

So of course he shut that down, vowing to not make a habit of accepting dangerous offers from pretty boys with big hearts placed purposefully on their sleeves. 

That was the problem, really. The feeling was so undeniably mutual Dan couldn’t, well, deny it. 

It wasn’t like Phil was a different person in the gross, snakey, two faced kind of way—that wasn’t at all the case. But it was abundantly clear that there was a shift: the more guarded Phil Dan initially met, the one that sits across or beside him at the long table in John’s shop, and the open Phil, the one Dan met the second they were left alone on the pavement. The one who looked through his eyelashes, asking if Dan wanted to grab a coffee with an interesting number of fingers stuffed in each of his front pockets.

The one that stayed, long after they were ushered out by a barista fifteen minutes past close. 

That wasn’t something Dan could deal with at the time. 

Barely thinks he can deal with it now, to be honest. Phil Lester doesn’t even know that he broke Dan’s heart once—though it was really Dan breaking his own—and Dan’s not about to fantasize about scenarios in which he’s given the power to do it again. 

That would be foolish. As foolish as continuing to say yes every single time Phil asks if he’d like to join him for a coffee, when he explicitly told himself he wouldn’t. 

They aren’t dates though, Dan reminds himself that as he tosses their coats on the loveseat and drops Phil’s bag on a cushion. It’s been a year, whatever chance he had has definitely dissolved into friendship. 

He makes a great effort to not turn his head, gaze longingly—or whatever bullshit—at Phil by the pickup counter once he’s sat in the chair on the other side of the table. He kicks his feet up on the loveseat with a determined frown. 

They’re just friends. Best friends, Dan tells himself but won’t dare say aloud. 

Phil is _his_ best friend, that’s for certain. He just doesn’t think he could handle being told that he isn’t Phil’s. So he keeps it to himself. 

They may be less than that, but they’re definitely nothing more. And that is perfectly fine. Dan can deal with that.

Phil sets down two large white mugs before Dan can get _too_ in his own head as he stares out the dark window. Both are piled high with whipped cream, a dusting of cinnamon over the one Phil slides towards Dan, a generous blizzard of crushed peppermint and chocolate shavings atop the mountain that is Phil’s. 

Dan can’t wait for the two a.m. text he’s bound to receive from Phil complaining of an upset stomach—a moment of _I told you so_ solace in the textbook hell he will probably still be in. The late night caffeine might not make any sense to anyone but them. Night owls. A university student drowning in exams revision and the recent gad who’s still stuck on a student’s sleep schedule. 

“I can’t believe you.” Dan rolls his eyes as Phil slides between the table and the loveseat, nearly knocking the whole wobbly thing over when he unsurprisingly trips on air. Dan automatically has a hand at the edge of the table, steadying it while Phil sits down. The usual. 

“What?” Phil smiles, cozying on up into the worn cushions. “It’s Christmas.” 

The signs are there, exam season, the cold weather that may or may not _smell like snow_ —depending on who you ask, the red and green chalkboard signs by the counter, jazzy renditions of holiday classics playing softly overhead, and those divisively festive cups stacked high by the pickup counter. Dan guesses he just likes making Phil say it, likes seeing that child-like glee light up on his face. 

“You’ve been saying that since, like, November.” 

Phil crinkles one of the napkins on the table in his fist and lobs it at Dan. 

“Don’t be a grinch.” It bounces off Dan’s chest and drops in his lap. He throws it back, getting Phil straight in the nose. 

There’s a truce in a loud cackle and Phil dropping the projectile onto the table to pick up his mug with both hands. His fingers wrap around it, his palms warming his smile. As he takes his first sip, his eyes slip shut—perfectly content. 

Dan feels the warmth before he even lays a hand on his own drink. 

“So what are you doing for Christmas?” Phil’s voice breaks Dan out of his surprisingly empty mind. He’s been spaced out for the past few minutes now, sipping his too-sweet drink that he’s actually properly enjoying while he watches people out on the streets start their Friday night. 

He pulls his eyes away from a couple on the other side of the street, arms slung around waists as they take up the whole walkway, and looks at Phil over his mug. 

It hides his frown at least. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

Dan takes a sip. “Nothing special, you know?” 

It’s not really the truth, but it’s also not a lie. He just doesn’t want to start spiraling—or whatever it is he does when he thinks about the holidays this year. 

Phil nods. “Same as last year?” 

Dan sighs, shrugs, looks out the window. 

“You doing anything fun?” he turns the spotlight on Phil, looking back to those wide, blue eyes. The anxiety in his chest cools down to a simmer. 

It starts to bubble up again—for an entirely different reason—as Phil’s smile goes bright and he animatedly tells Dan what his family has planned for Christmas.

Togetherness and tradition, mince pies and kumbaya by the chestnuts roasting on the fire—or whatever. Dan just likes when Phil is excited about something, buzzing like a kid on, well, Christmas. 

This particular squeezing at his chest is nice, at least. In some sort of sick, masochistic way that makes love and yearning feel like the same kind of warmth. 

Between a story about the time Phil’s brother tricked him into believing snowmen were sentient and an inquiry about what the age cut off is for asking your parents for a dog for Christmas, Phil reaches across the table for Dan’s half finished coffee. 

“I couldn’t decide between the two, so I thought we could share,” Phil says with a cheeky smile when Dan raises a brow in question. 

“Of course there was an ultimatum,” Dan laughs.

“Always is with you,” Phil says softly to the mug, tipping it against his lips. 

Dan sits back in his seat, narrowing his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Phil merely shakes his head, smiling into his coffee. When he puts the mug back down, there’s a white line of whipped cream sat atop the peak of his top lip—because of course Dan didn't immediately scoop all of the cream off the top of his coffee with his pinky finger like Phil did. That was very distracting to watch. 

Speaking of distracting, Dan can’t seem to take his eyes off Phil’s lips. Because of the whipped cream there, _not_ because he’s a little obsessed with his cupid’s bow. 

“You’ve got-” Dan lifts a hand to his mouth, pointing at his own lip before gesturing to Phil. 

There’s a desperate desire to lean across the table, let his chair scrape against the floor and the bottom of his jumper dip into a coffee on the table just so he can press a finger against those soft lips to wipe it away. With it, there’s also the thought of doing exactly that but without the assistance of his hand. 

“Oh!” 

He does neither, of course, just watches with an aching heart and a dry mouth as Phil’s tongue swipes all around his mouth—doing entirely too much for just a bit of cream settling at the dent in his lip. 

“Did I get it?” 

Dan tries to look everywhere but Phil’s lips. 

He fails, nodding with a tight smile. “Yep.” He reaches across the table, sliding Phil’s mocha back with him—just to stop himself from staring. 

“We should start a codex.” 

“A codex?”

“Rating all the festive drinks,” Phil explains. 

“Is that just a ploy to get more sugar in you?” 

Phil smiles. “Possibly,” he says, looking pensive with that cute little furrow between his brows. “And…” he trails off, biting his lip as his eyes narrow. 

Sometimes Dan really wants to know what’s going on in that head of his. And by sometimes he means literally all of the time. 

The crease at Phil’s brows softens and he shakes his head, seemingly thinking better of whatever he was going to say. “I’ll pay if you say yes,” he offers, leaning forward with a smirk. 

“Yes to?” 

“Helping me rate all the festive drinks Manchester has to offer.” 

“That sounds like a lot of caffeine.” Dan feigns his contemplation, going the whole nine yards and pursing his lips as he rubs at his chin. 

“Most of them are probably hot chocolate, and we’ve already knocked out two.” Phil lifts the mug in front of him. “What do you say?” 

Dan leans forward, absently spinning Phil’s peppermint mocha. He looks down at it with a small smile. “This one’s an eight.” He nods to the mug in Phil’s hand, “Six and a half.” 

Phil absolutely beams, blinding Dan. As if the sun now miraculously comes out at night, specifically inside of near-empty coffee chains. 

“Out of what?” Phil asks as he leans over to dig through his messenger bag, procuring a pen and flattening out the crumpled up Starbucks napkin with fervor. 

“Huh?” Dan squints, trying to read Phil’s whimsical handwriting upside down. A big GB and PM at the very top of the napkin, Dan’s name and rating next to each one. 

“Like, six and a half out of ten reindeer? Or ten Santas? Or stars, I guess, if you’re boring.” Phil looks up with his nose all scrunched at the very thought. It makes Dan laugh. He finds himself doing that a lot around Phil.

He rolls his eyes—that too. “Since when have reindeer been a part of rating systems?” 

Phil shakes his head, indignant. “Since now.” 

He looks back down to the napkin, drawing what looks to be a very grumpy Santa next to Dan’s ratings. He adds his own name and something that might be a reindeer, could very well be a lion, beside it. 

“I think this is seven out of ten reindeer,” Phil points at the gingerbread latte with his pen, then leans across to tap at the rim of the mocha in front of Dan, “and this one is eight and a half reindeer out of ten.” 

“A half of a reindeer?” Dan lifts a brow. “Is it the front half or the bottom half?” 

Phil drops his pen back in his bag and looks to Dan with nothing but mischief in his eyes—also very cute. 

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know?” 

“Yes,” Dan blinks, shaking his head, “yes, I would!” 

Phil doesn’t grace him with a response, instead he purses his lips, looking deep in thought. “Which is the sexier half?” 

_“Phil!”_ This time, Dan does stand up in his seat to lean his whole body across the table. He playfully slaps at Phil’s shoulder. “That’s going right in the _Phil Furry Evidence_ folder,” Dan laughs, shaking his head as he sits back down. 

“Okay,” Phil says slowly. “But if you had to choose…” 

“Actually shut up right now.” 

Phil doesn’t shut up and Dan doesn’t stop smiling—the usual. They’ve gotten better at keeping track of time, if only for the alarm set on Phil’s phone. The barista seems to tolerate their loud laughter when she doesn’t have to bug them about leaving after close, and Dan barely remembers a time where he was self conscious of it. It’s good. Sometimes not listening to his own rules is good. There was never a real chance at him staying away, he reckons. He’d be out of his mind to believe otherwise. 

And Dan is _definitely_ a little mad. 

They’ll part a street down from Starbucks, Dan taking a left towards his flat closer to the University, and Phil, seemingly, always going right. Dan will want to offer to walk Phil home, though he’ll shake his head bashfully at any of Phil’s similar offers. And he doesn’t think he’ll ever have the courage to ask himself or even accept, never mind actually reach out for the hug he so desperately wants. 

Because they’re mates, and that’s all. He’ll settle for a squeeze at a shoulder or a lingering gaze before one of them turns to walk away. Sometimes he’ll look back once he’s stepped a few paces, and sometimes he’ll be lucky enough to catch Phil’s eye doing the same—those small moments keep him floating all the way through the week. 

They really shouldn’t, but they do. And he’s often left wondering if this bubble of safety he’s keeping himself in is doing more harm than good. 

Maybe a few weeks away at the end of the month will do him good, he thinks—once again trying to convince himself he can kick the habit that is pretty nerdy boys with dark messy hair and kind smiles. 

Christmas is about gifts after all, he could really use one.


	2. Chapter 2

It was his therapist’s idea initially.

Actually, _well,_ she’s not really his therapist, more like a counselor. And the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing wasn’t her idea specifically, but Dan’s kind of two birds one stone-ing it like the overachieving perfectionist he so desperately wants to be. 

Or maybe he’s just a little bit too competitive… If you could, like, _win_ at therapy, Dan sure as hell would try. 

There was something less daunting—less real—about stopping by the counseling center a few weeks into his first year as opposed to all the forms and technical jargon and _reality_ of seeing an actual psychologist through his GP. In actuality, he knows it isn’t any less sufficient—his counselor is actually licensed and all that—but there’s some odd sort of comfort in believing that it’s therapy-lite. That it’s just a stop he makes every week after his Wednesday morning lecture. A part of his uni schedule. 

It’s less scary that way, makes the whole clinically depressed thing less incapacitating in that all encompassing way he felt before he realized he could actually ask for help—seek out guidance and plans and treatment. 

It’s not like he’s cured or anything, far from it, but it’s better. Manageable most days. He can actually breathe sometimes, and that makes all the difference. It’s truly a miracle what being less chemically imbalanced can do to a person. He should really buy some stock in big serotonin, or whatever. 

Dan reckons he would’ve dropped out in his first year if he hadn’t made that first appointment. Reckons he wouldn’t have changed his major before the start of this term if he hadn’t kept up with it. Reckons he wouldn’t be able to individually look his parents in the face to tell them so, because that’s a thing now—he reckons it would be helping him cope with _that_ if it weren’t for his steadfast ignorance on that whole front. 

He’s still working up to that though, thought it’d be a good idea to put it off as long as possible until his only real option is to die with his secrets or ruin both of the Christmases he’s invited to. 

But in true Dan fashion, he’d like to not dwell on all of that too much. 

He knows he never would have met Phil, or any of his friends, if it weren’t for the moments of bravery that lead him to make the appointment, keep up with it, and _actually_ follow through. 

The October breeze still feels fresh on his mind, the whole thing feeling like a setup for some sort of geeky rom-com. Except there’s no romance, and the comedy only lied in the way he paced outside of the shop on the verge of an anxiety attack for fifteen minutes before some guy with wildly curly hair poked his head out the door and, somehow endearingly, tugged him inside with a, “ _Get on in here, bozo.”_

There’s a box on the nightstand by his bed, in it—amongst some properly nasty festival bands, ticket stubs, and other sentimental nonsense that anyone else would consider rubbish—sits the little strip of paper he ripped from the flyer that caught his eye on campus. A bright pink thing, with a doodle of a curly haired stick figure casting a spell on a questionable looking dragon while another stick figure, with bumps of muscles on their stick arms bigger than their actual head, was wrangling the dragon’s tail. The third and final figure, with an emo fringe, was wielding a comically large sword. 

**Seeking** **committed** **Dungeons and Dragons players**

**Any and All Experience Welcome**

**Stop by YCSM Comics & Games or call/text PJ to inquire**

Dan no longer needs the name and address of the shop, nor does he need PJ’s phone number—it’s programmed into his phone now—but he has a sentimental attachment to that ripped and slightly crumpled strip of paper. It’s given him a lot.

In a fucked up way he _definitely_ won’t be disclosing to his counselor, he feels a bit indebted to it. 

The words of his counselor floated through his head that day he stopped in front of the activity board and read the flyer over and over. Commitment. Exercise. Socialization.

All of the boxes were checked in a way that felt less daunting than any of his other ideas. Dragons seemed cooler than debate club, the walk to the shop wasn’t as intimidating as the huffing and clanging of weight lifting meatheads at the gym on campus, and… that little emo stick figure on the flyer looked awfully friend-shaped. If that could even be a thing—having a fucking friend-crush on a stick figure. 

Maybe it’s really more like three birds one stone, which is incredibly morbid to think about, and he’ll probably make a joke about that to Phil later. Laugh through it arguing the morals of idioms, like the very source wasn’t at all life altering for him, while Phil does something ridiculous like insist it’s actually the birds throwing the rocks. 

Dan smiles like an idiot at the thought, taking his hands out of his pockets as he walks to the shop so he can press his chilled palms to his cheeks before he arrives, hoping that they’ll calm the fierce red blossoming there. 

If anything, all they do is exaggerate it. At least he can blame it on the weather, the way he always does—no matter the temperature outside or in the shop—when looking at those blue eyes becomes all too much for him. 

There aren’t any leaves on the ground, and he’s bundled up in far more than a light jumper, but Dan still feels similar flutterings of nerves and excitement in his stomach as he pulls open the door and the shop’s bell rings above him. For once in his life, it’s something he doesn’t wish away. Not all feelings are meant to make you feel horrible, or wracked with guilt, simply because you’re _feeling_. Dan’s been coming to terms with that over the past year or so, along with everything else. 

It’s a pretty freeing realization. Felt like a first step, one of hundreds and thousands on the infinitely squiggly-lined path of healing and coping… and maybe even thriving in spite of it all. He’s not quite there yet though, and to be honest that’s a goal that seems too impossible to put any stake in. 

He’s too afraid to even roll for it, never mind actually having the balls to look at the dice if he does. 


	3. Chapter 3

Dan still isn’t entirely sure what the YCSM in YCSM Comics & Games stands for.

When he asked he got a stoically blank stare from John while Phil and PJ fought over whether it was _Yodeling Cows and Sea Monsters_ or _Young Cosmic Sailors, Matey!_

It’s affectionately referred to as _Space Cows_ now. A compromise that saved the long table set up in the middle of the shop from becoming a full blown battleground when PJ challenged Phil to a duel atop it. Dan thought they were joking, until PJ stood up in his creaky chair and put a foot on the hard plastic top of the table with his hands out like he was wielding an invisible sword. 

To think Dan kept coming back after that, embracing the absolute weirdest of weird with shy laughs behind his hand and surprisingly open arms.

He doesn’t even know how many times he’s opened this door. Too many to count, probably. Definitely more than every Friday evening for a year and some change. 

“So when I tell you to come early, you show up on time for once.” Dan is immediately greeted by the _not at all_ intimidating welcome of John’s crossed arms. His tone is light though, teasing as he shakes his head with a smile. 

“He’s actually five minutes late,” PJ says as he passes between them in that ridiculous wizard’s hat of his, bonking Dan in the head with his notebook before continuing on to the spot at the head of the table. 

“Sorry,” Dan unzips his coat and drapes it on the back of the chair next to Phil, “you know me.” Phil leans his head back, fringe flopping all out of place as he smiles wide and they exchange an intimately soft:

“ _Hi Dan.”_

_“_ _Hey Phil.”_

“Unfortunately,” Charlotte quips from across the table. Dan pulls his gaze off of Phil—a great feat—to stick his tongue out at her. 

“Wait. Why was Dan supposed to be here early?” Phil asks, ignoring the plethora of horrifically ugly expressions Charlotte and Dan are twisting their faces into at each other. 

Dan gives Phil’s shoulder a squeeze while he grimaces at Charlotte. “Nosy boy.” 

“That’s none of your business,” John says at the same time, catching Dan’s eye and motioning for him to follow him to the back. 

Dan lets go of Phil’s shoulder, honestly not even realizing his hand was still resting there, and steps around the table to trail after him. He snorts as he hears a squeak of a chair and a, “ _Not you_ ,” from PJ. There’s no doubt in his mind it’s directed at Phil. 

He pointedly ignores the swooping feeling in his stomach, instead asking John about his day, making small talk until they’re through the back room’s doors and out of earshot. 

There’s definitely a different level of familiarity amongst everyone in their little group. PJ gets and gives back the same playful pushes and shoves that Dan and Phil dole out to each other, but Dan and Phil are the only ones that finish each other’s sentences. Dan and Charlotte bicker like brother and sister, where Kelly is more like the older sibling he never had—the kind he isn’t himself, but really should be. And John… well John is the only one of the group that Dan has the least amount of familiarity with. 

That isn’t to say he feels any less a part of the family Dan likes to think he’s been adopted into, he’s just older, more reserved, less of a nuisance than the rest of them. 

PJ won’t dare let Dan forget that he’s the baby of the group, despite only dropping his own teen title a week prior, barely edging Dan out by half a year or so. At thirty-three, John has a decade on Phil, and Kelly and Charlotte fall somewhere in between. Dan’s quite certain they celebrated Charlotte’s twenty-fourth birthday for the second time last month. Sure, the past year has seemed to blow by, but Dan doesn’t think it’s possible to turn twenty-four in 2009 _and_ 2010, but to each their own.

In addition to being so much older—basically having been more of a father figure in the past year than Dan’s own dad, but he won’t be spreading all his trauma out on the table right now—John also owns the shop PJ and Phil work at. The same shop they all gather at to play Dungeons and Dragons every week.

That was a little intimidating to learn on its own when Dan first joined them, if John’s level of henchness wasn’t spooky enough. 

Which it definitely was. 

Phil has a theory that he used to be a, like, buff wrestler or something before settling down in Manchester with his wife. But Phil also thinks PJ is secretly a robot, so. Not the most reliable source of information, he is. 

But endearing all the same. Dan always manages to come back to that, everything always leading him right back to his big, fat crush on Phil. Decidedly _not_ a friend crush, despite all the repression that seems to be wearing thinner by the day. 

Needless to say the universe was laughing right in his fucking face when he pulled Phil’s name out of PJ’s stupid hat for secret Santa this year. 

Getting Phil was both easy and incredibly difficult. Easy in the sense that they’ve learned they’re basically the same person interests wise, into similar games and movies and some overlap on music. As a nerd, shopping for a nerd is easy. It was a cakewalk when Dan pulled PJ the year prior. He still smiles every week as PJ guides them between slurps of green tea from the mug he got him. The print always faces outwards to the table, the _Guess I’ll Die_ guy with his head replaced with a D20 on a natural 1 roll purposefully mocking all of them. 

PJ had pressed his hand to his chest upon opening it, chuckling as he looked straight at Dan with those forest eyes of his.

“You get me Howell, you truly get me,” he had said, only solidifying that feeling of belonging Dan was just starting to let himself lean into at the time. 

Dan hopes he gets a similar reaction out of Phil, though it’s a bit of a gamble. He chews at the corner of his thumb as John pulls a rectangular cardboard shipping box out from under a stack of much larger square ones. 

“Came in yesterday,” John says, the stack of boxes making a hard thud against the counter once the smaller box slips free. “I tucked it under the pre-owned mangas I’ve been pestering Phil to alphabetize for the past two weeks now, thought it’d be a safe place.” 

Dan huffs out a little laugh as John hands him the box. He barely wastes a moment, peeling up the packing tape and opening the box to reveal another rectangular box. Garishly bright pink and unmistakable '80s hairdos stare back at him.

He pulls it out and smiles even wider—impossibly so—at the way the sealed plastic around the box shines in the stark backroom lighting. 

“Brilliant,” Dan beams, looking over to John, “thanks for this. I don’t know how you managed.” Dan sifted through page after page of eBay listings, nearly tearing his hair out at all of the as-is, damaged, and half complete versions of the game. John had laughed when he finally asked if he would be able to help him, having an order placed within the hour. 

“Trick of the trade.” John smiles back. “He’s going to love it.” 

“You think?” Dan bites at his bottom lip, constantly ping-ponging between pride and worry. 

“Of course.” John claps Dan on the back when he passes by him to make his way back into the main room. “If there’s any better gift for Phil than sweets, it’s hot guys,” he adds with a laugh, still somehow leaving Dan stunned despite there never being any inkling of a different vibe at the shop. 

He’s always so prepared for the hostility, it’s hard to settle into the safety. Even if the safety has been there since day one, and has never once seemed to falter. 

That’s why getting a gift for Phil was difficult. The ease in knowing Phil would love anything Dan likes himself makes him look right into the three pairs of smoldering eyes on the box and begs the question why _he_ , himself, would like this game. 

It’s stupid, because it’s obvious, but that doesn’t make it easier for him to admit. Not to himself, definitely not to others. So he’s thankful for John’s casual encouragement, and the distinct lack of any knowing glances for him to pick up on. It almost makes him feel like it isn’t weird at all to be getting his best mate, who is a guy, a board game that clearly states on the front of the box: 

**Ages:**

**For all girls who like boys**

_And boys who like boys_ , Dan thinks but doesn’t dare say aloud as he drops the game back into the shipping box and re-sticks the tape. 

It’s just him in the back room now, a chance to breathe. Dan takes it gladly, but doesn’t linger long enough to let the words on his tongue meet the air. Feels brave enough to let them stick to the walls of his mind, let them settle for just a few seconds before he tucks the box under his arm and puts on the face of someone who has just gone through absolutely nothing at all. 

He gets to be someone else entirely as soon as he slides into the creaky chair beside Phil, and he resolutely doesn’t look for any metaphors in that. 

Best not ruin his escapism, he reckons, scrunching his nose and throwing the dice Charlotte lobbed his way right back at her. 

“Children please.” PJ holds his hands up at the end of the table. “Behave.” His reflexes are alarmingly good, immediately ducking and narrowly missing the D20 that flies past his head.

Kelly snorts loudly as Charlotte argues that he _is_ the children, and it may or may not take them all another five minutes of on and off laughter and various projectiles to actually start their game for the night. The usual, really. 


	4. Chapter 4

They first met at a crossroads. 

Dan, the lone traveler, was quick to pull his bow when he heard the crunching of leaves and babble of casual conversation getting closer and closer. He walked carefully, all stealth on quiet feet as he realized the path he was on was starting to run parallel to another coming from the East. 

The voices were loud by the time he reached the connecting split in the paths. 

He was presented three options as his heart beat rapidly in his ears, ducking behind a cluster of trees that surrounded the path and listening to the approaching party get louder and louder—closer and closer. 

Onward. Dan had no real plans for his journey, no map or objective, just the desire for adventure, but he reckoned he wouldn’t have thought twice about continuing on the path ahead if given no obstacles or unexpected company. His feet were carrying him forward even before he heard the disturbance in the forest, no real desire to travel East. 

The split in the road, Eastbound. A guarantee that he would face whomever, or whatever, was fast approaching. He didn’t want to stir up any trouble, he wanted to remain the lone traveler he was used to being. 

Back the way he came. That wasn’t an option—or, it was the coward’s option. Perhaps Dan felt that was fitting for him, but he’d much rather wait out in the trees than turn back now. 

A high rolled perception check ate Dan’s stealth alive. 

“Show yourself!” a booming voice demanded, much closer than Dan was expecting, before there was any more investigation. He gripped tighter around his bow, knowing he would be foolish to try to run through the thick brush he was hidden in, and stepped out from behind the tree. 

It was mere coincidence— _not_ fate—that his raised arrow was pointed right at the chest of the man-like bird creature in the center of the group of three. Dan dared to let go of the beady blue gaze locked on him to assess this new company. Keeping his arrow in place, he sized up the surprisingly human-looking person leaning against one of those big feathered wings. Green that looked just a little bit off kilter winked at him.

Dan quickly looked away, trying to ignore the hairs rising at the back of his neck that only stood more alert as his eyes met the harsh stare of the half-orc with crossed arms at the other side of the Aarakocra. 

For whatever reason, he was drawn back to blue. His hold on his crossbow shook slightly as the D20 bounced around in his palm. 

“You best be on your way.” Dan nodded in the direction both parties came from, staking his claim over the path ahead with a pull at his bow. “I don’t want any trouble.” 

His die knocked against the table and rolled to a stop, the room quiet. Charlotte tried—and failed—to stop her snicker behind her hand as she leaned over the table and looked at Dan’s natural 1. 

“Plus two charisma, though!” Dan stiffened at the hand clasped at his shoulder, Phil giving him a little shake as he pointed at the sheet that all four of them helped him fill out before adding him to their ongoing campaign. 

Charlotte snorted. “Okay. Three then. You know what that means.” 

The Aarakocra lifted a hand, wrapping it around Dan’s arrow before he could even think about releasing a blow. 

“ _Cute_ ,” the human—or not human, Dan wasn’t entirely sure—cooed from beside him. He stepped forward, cocking his head to the side. “I don’t want any trouble,” he mocked. 

Dan tried—and failed with the bird creature’s grip—to pull his bow back further, letting out a huff. 

“I’ve always wanted to play with an elf.” 

“Phil,” the half-orc warned, the voice making Dan jump. “Be nice.” 

“Be nice?” the bird screeched, head snapping to the side. “Do _you_ have an elf-y arrow pointed to _your_ chest, John?” 

“Technically he’s a half-elf,” the human interrupted, startling Dan once again. This time, it’s with a swift movement, the loud cracking snap of Dan’s arrow echoing between the trees. 

Dan scrambled to procure another from behind his back, but the Aarakocra was quicker. Cool silver pressed ever so gently against the exposed skin just above the v of his shirt. 

“How did-” 

“It’s best not to ask how Peej operates,” the bird—presumably going by the name of Phil—cut him off. Dan never even considered the thought that birds could smile before that moment, but he swore the beak before him was smirking. “Would just hurt your brain.” 

The blade against Dan’s chest had no real pressure to it. He could have ran, maybe giving himself a chance to reload his arrow. But for some reason, he didn’t.

It turned out to be a much better call than his lousy intimidation roll. And for the first time in his life, the lone traveler found himself a suitable party. 

Their first journey together was rocky, but rewarding. Rocky in the literal sense when Phil managed to create a landslide of stones and gravel that trapped them in a cave for two and a half table sittings—not like anyone still holds that against him, or anything. They definitely _don’t_ bring the “cave incident” up every other week. 

Thrust into the new world, Dan learned the ropes—had the ropes wrap around his wrist and ankles in a not at all kinky way by a lizard lady, had a half-orc get a good patch of his leg hair while slicing through said ropes, and decided to outlaw ropes all together after Phil somehow managed to tie _himself_ up during an escape—of the game. 

And through laughter, dice flying across the room, near flipped tables, and that incredibly distracting thing Phil does when contemplating a move, Dan fell in love with the game. 

Maybe more than just the game- _his friends._ He made friends. That’s all, that’s what he means. 

They’ve since moved on to a new campaign, starting anew about four months back when Charlotte finally roped her girlfriend into playing with them. PJ is back at the DM helm with a fresh adventure straight from the wackiest corners of his brain—Dan isn’t entirely sure cardboard dragons are in any of the D&D handbooks, and he’s betting that inkling has nothing to do with him being new at the game. 

He reckons it’s more fun to break the rules anyway. And with the piles upon piles of handbooks and guides Dan often catches PJ flipping through in one of the big bean bag chairs in the corner of the shop when he should most definitely be working, PJ is well enough acquainted with the rules to break them. 

They all encouraged Dan to do something a little out of his comfort zone when they ended their last campaign and started fresh. He voiced towards the end an interest in completely changing up his character, now that he was more familiar with the game. Taking off the training wheels, if you will. 

He ended up in a bean bag chair of his own with a hefty character guide one early September afternoon, scribbling down notes with the company of Phil’s slightly out of tune humming to the music in the shop while he shelved a new game delivery. 

Dan pointedly ignores just how much time he’s spent at the shop in the past year. If his bum has become more acquainted with those bean bag chairs than the seats in his lecture halls or the rickety spinny chair at his work study in the student call center, that’s between him and- _well_ , John who’s asked him about fifty times if he wants to come work at the shop. 

The last time he worked retail he nearly sold an axe to a child so. As fun as PJ and Phil make the shop seem, he’s fine with his boring campus job for now. 

And it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t spend any more of his time with Phil, each second making it harder and harder to breathe. 

Or easier, actually. More often than not he finds himself looking at Phil and feeling like he’s really breathing for the very first time. It’s a freeing feeling, a terrifying feeling, a feeling he wants to both bottle up to keep forever but also hide away. 

A similar feeling to when he flipped a page and started reading about the Tiefling race—a character that resonates with him so much more than any old half-elf. Genderless, forced to be self-reliant, a little cunning, devious. Different, but incredibly strong in character. The charisma bonus doesn’t go unnoticed. 

Dan was immediately taken. 

For the lore, he swears. No matter how smug Phil looked when he showed him his new character sheet, the horns and tail are definitely _not_ a furry thing. 

Definitely not… 

Phil is doing the distracting thing again.

Fifteen minutes into their sitting and they’ve come across a mostly unassuming bridge just ahead, separating them and the snowy-topped mountains they’ve been heading towards. Unassuming if not for the very visible crack in the earth below it and, _oh yeah_ , also the _giant fucking_ bridge troll patrolling it. It’s—at least—not made of rope though, so Dan takes it as a win. 

It’s very hard not to look at Phil beside him after his own perception check and report to the party that the ravine is definitely not a survivable jump or fall or whatever ridiculous alternative plan Kelly was starting to conjure. The troll is unavoidable and, unfortunately, they’re all awaiting Phil’s turn—he doesn’t exactly have the _best_ track record. He has the elbow of the arm that hasn’t been bumping into Dan’s side every few minutes propped up on the table, his eyes narrowed. The side of his hand rests against his mouth with his thumb holding up his chin, his lips pressing around his index finger all pursed as if he’s kissing it while he contemplates his next move. 

As always, it’s all _very_ distracting and impossible to look away from. Dan nearly wants to ask PJ if he can roll just to get Phil to stop.

He doesn’t, of course—he never does. Somehow he’s convinced himself that would be _more_ transparent than his staring. 

There’s just a lot to stare at. The plush pink of Phil’s lips and the pale finger they wrap around. The stark black hair that always falls so effortlessly across his forehead, framing his face in a way that would make Dan seethe in jealousy if he wasn’t so interested in running a hand through it. And, of course, the spark of brightness in his eyes when he locks onto whatever idea is in his head, looking around the table with a smirk before announcing it. 

“I am fluffing out my wings as I step away from the party out into the open, walking confidently towards the bridge. I am going to seduce the troll,” Phil says in earnest, his chin lifted high, not even cracking a hint of a smile. 

John muffles his snort behind his hand. Dan rolls his eyes. PJ lifts a brow, inviting Phil to go ahead and roll to see where that gets him. 

“I’m stopping him!” Charlotte interrupts, tossing a die onto the table. It rolls towards Dan and Phil, settling somewhere between them on a two. “ _Fuck,”_ she hisses under her breath. 

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do-” 

“You attempt to run after Phil to hold him back,” PJ pointedly ignores the words coming out of Phil’s mouth, “but you’re so distracted by what’s ahead you do not notice the divot in the uneven terrain. You fall flat on your face in the dirt as Phil continues to skip ahead, looking dangerously horny by the minute-” 

“ _PJ!_ ” More than one voice echoes from around the table. 

PJ simply lifts a hand and continues on. “You don’t take any damage from the fall, but you’re incredibly embarrassed by the entire party laughing at you and it squashes your previous determination.” PJ looks pointedly around the table, everyone smirking or letting out little suppressed huffs of giggles. 

“For the record,” Dan interjects, “I’m mostly laughing at Phil.” 

Kelly snorts, leaning into Charlotte’s side as she laughs. “Of course you are.”

“You’re just jealous Philly’s getting a big slice of troll da-” 

Dan is quick to slap a hand over Phil’s mouth. “Do _not_ finish that sentence.” 

“Phil you still haven’t given me a persuasion check,” PJ says, looking between the two of them with a sly smile. Dan’s hand retreats, too focused on committing the softness of his fingers brushing against Phil’s cheek to memory to even notice how the movement has seemingly gravitated them closer together.

Phil’s shoulder is firm against his—warm and grounding—as he rolls. 

It only gets firmer, Phil pressing entirely in his space as he buries his head in Dan’s chest with a muffled, “ _Oh noooooo_.” 

Dan’s heart beats rapidly, Phil apparently deciding he is the best place to hide from whatever failure of epic proportions PJ has for him upon his absolutely horrible roll. 

The laughter around the table, of course, only gets louder while PJ details the way in which Phil is flung around by a bridge troll and it doesn’t stop even as the entire party has to band together to heal him before he actually dies. 

“Serves you right,” Dan gets out through breathy laughter. 

“Shut up,” Phil says from his new spot, still holding a hand over the side of his face while he presses the rest of it against Dan’s collarbone. 

Dan’s nails are digging almost painfully hard into the center of his palms. It takes nearly everything in him to not lift a hand and run his fingers through that black hair that looks as soft as his skin. He so desperately wants to hold him there. 

“Technically,” Dan deflects from the warm, fizzy feeling in the pit of his stomach, “in a way… it _did_ fuck you up.” 

“Shut _up!”_ Phil repeats in a whine that’s paired with an adorably pathetic tap of a punch against his chest before pulling away. 

Dan swears he can still feel the warmth against his side, his chest, even as Phil sits up straight and returns to his own bubble. Friends is becoming an increasingly difficult word to define. 

“Can we, like, actually fight this troll now?” Kelly pops the bubble completely, bringing Dan back into the game. 

Phil raises a finger. “I have an idea!” 

“NO!” the _entire_ table shouts simultaneously. 

Dan’s honestly not sure how they ever manage to progress in the game, but somehow—in their own weird way—they always do. 

“That was such a mistake,” Dan says once they’re back in the cold, leaving two half-full Starbucks drinks in the bin on their way out. It was _someone’s_ great idea to try both the eggnog latte and frappuccino on the same night—both equally as horrible. 

“Review from Phil: I hate it.” Phil bumps their shoulders together as they walk. They, at least, had the decency to hold back their criticisms until they were out of earshot of the barista behind the counter. It’s not like it’s her fault Starbucks has yet to realize the combination of nog and coffee should be considered a capital offense. 

Phil shakes his head, sticking his tongue out in an absolutely sour face. “It’s like I can still taste it.” 

“We really should have ordered something else,” Dan laughs. 

“According to my calculations-”

“Which are always _so_ correct,” Dan says, thick with teasing sarcasm. 

“Shh!” Phil pushes a gloved hand against Dan’s shoulder. “I think we only have two festive drinks left to try.” 

“If that’s the case, we definitely should have ordered something else.” 

Phil shakes his head as they come to a stop where their paths split. “No, ‘cause then we would be finished with the ranking.” 

“Isn’t that the goal?” Dan’s brows tug together, giving Phil a questioning look. 

“No. Well, yes, but-” Phil says quickly, a slight frown taking over his face. He looks down at his feet and says, “I don’t want to be done yet,” so softly to the ground that Dan barely catches it. 

“Oh,” Dan matches his tone. His cheeks feel warm despite the frigid air biting at them. 

His gaze falls down as well, the city never sounding so loud in his ears as a quiet settles between them.

A city that doesn’t stop just because he has. Cars whiz by. Sirens start up somewhere off in the distance, muted and void of the urgency Dan knows they should provoke. A fast walking couple brings with them a woosh of air that grazes the back of Dan’s parka as they pass on the small strip of pavement. Nothing is stopping for him—for them. 

“Do you want me to walk you home?” They both look up at the same time, Phil’s expression now completely neutral, frown replaced with the smallest upward tug at the corner of his mouth. 

He makes it so very hard. 

Dan wants to press a kiss there, thread his fingers through the hair at the back of his head and pull him close enough to see if there would be any warm spark between the frozen tips of their noses. 

He wants, but he doesn’t. He shakes his head as he always does—to Phil’s question, to himself. 

“‘M quite alright, thanks.” Dan musters up a smile that doesn’t make it all the way up to his eyes. “See you next week?” He asks, as if the plan has ever wavered in the year he’s known him. It’s really all Dan has to give. Or, it’s the safest thing to give. 

He can’t help but note just how _tired_ he is. And it has nothing to do with the time of day or unfinished coffees. 

Phil nods, once. The corner of his lip twitches as he reaches out and gives Dan’s elbow a light squeeze—something Dan wouldn’t even catch if not for the way he’s so intent with staring. 

“Yeah,” Phil says as they part to go their respective ways, “night Dan.” 

Dan makes it a few steps before he pauses, turning back around to watch Phil’s figure grow smaller and smaller in the other direction. 

“Goodnight Phil,” he says softly to himself, just to taste the way it settles in the open air between them. It’s much better than any holiday drink they’ve had, though there is a lingering hint of something sour. Cowardice, if he had to put a name to it. 

At least it wipes away that horrible eggnog latte aftertaste. 

He lets out a small huff of air from his nose as Phil disappears from his line of view, turning on his heel to make his way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pssst i know ppl usually do different character names playing dnd but i made the exec decision to use the same names so none of us would have to deal with 59340534 different names in this hahaha  
> awwlso i think i made the loose decision to skip weekends while uploading this bc i know it isn't going to be 25 chapters (and also i have run out of pre-written stuff so i'm playing realtime catchup now and thatll give me space to breathe hopefully)  
> im sosoossoosososo happy at all the excitement for this i really was like.. i don't know if anyone will jive with this and was super worried but aaaaaaaa you guys have been so nice so thankies <3333 i'll get back on track replying to comments SOON (not a dnp soon a me soon) but just know ive been reading them over and over and over <333


	5. Chapter 5

A shiver rolls its way down Dan’s spine as he exits the warmth of the library, stepping right out into a strong gust of wind. He hikes his bag further up his shoulder and crosses his arms, sticking his exposed hands in the warm space between his pits before they get a chance to freeze all the way through. 

It seems to get colder by the week—which, logistically, yeah that makes complete sense considering it’s winter and all, but it’s always more of an adjustment than winter to spring or summer to fall.

Dan doesn’t think he ever really adjusts to the time change either, there’s just something so _wrong_ about the sun going down in the late afternoon. 

It had been bright when he left his last class of the day, the sun taking the edge off the chill that now easily permeates through his inadequate amount of layers. He even took a spell of fresh air with lunch, people watching on a bench by the library with a prepackaged sandwich and a hot coffee. 

The caffeine had shaken off the haze from a droning lecture, but apparently wasn’t enough to kick him into revision mode. He doesn’t know why he thinks he’ll ever get anything done at the library in the first place, always setting himself up at an empty table and immediately getting distracted by the little ornate details in the architecture he’s nearly committed to memory by now. He’ll crack open a textbook just to hone in on the hushed gossip session at the next table over, write all of three notes before abandoning his seat to wander through the stacks of books, fingertips more acquainted with their dusty spines than his brain is with his course material. 

It’s easier to blame it on the library, instead of admitting that he’s just shit at revising. He reckons that’s why he starts there, uses it as the excuse he doesn’t get out of his two mostly quiet and respectful flatmates. 

Today he managed to skim half a chapter before his usual wandering—both physical and mental—leaving with little information retained and another Shakespeare checked out that he’ll definitely finish and return before he leaves next week. 

He has the weekend free to revise, so of course he’s already finding distractions. 

Procrastination. Dan could probably write a book on it, if he weren’t, _well_ , you know. 

By the time he gets to his building his ears are properly frozen, no doubt as bright red as his cheeks and the tip of his nose, and he curses his decision to get a haircut earlier in the week. He didn’t realize just how much his overgrown hair was keeping his ears from getting frostbite, nor did he think they took enough off for it to really make a difference, but it definitely does.

He makes a mental note to throw on a hat and scarf when he leaves again as he attempts to shake off the cold in the foyer—defrosting just enough to make it up those four dreadful flights of stairs. 

He huffs and puffs at the top of them, catching his breath as he pauses to dig through his bag for his keys. He doesn’t register the creak of a door opening over their jangle when he pulls them out, so he jumps right out of his skin at the far too enthusiastic, “Hey Dan!” that follows. 

“Christ Adam,” Dan says, breathless with a hand to his chest. 

There’s an amused look on his face—when he said respectful, that doesn’t include Adam’s particular enjoyment over how easily Dan spooks—and a duffle bag in his hand. 

“You leaving?” 

Adam bobs his head once. “Yep. Ethics prof decided to dick around and let us skip if we aced the last paper and my other two are take homes,” he lifts his bag, patting at it, “so I am taking them home.” 

“Mate, your luck.” 

“I know.” Adam smiles, clapping Dan on the shoulder as he passes him to make his way down the stairs. “See you in the new year!” 

“Yeah.” Dan huffs out a laugh, shaking his head while Adam takes the stairs two at a time. “Have a good Christmas!” 

There’s a, “You too!” called out after him from the bottom of the stairs—and Dan mutters something that sounds an awful lot like, “ _Jocks,”_ as he jabs his key in the door and pushes it open. 

He blinks in the darkness a few times and fumbles around to flick on the hall light before kicking his shoes off by the door. The tension released from his shoulders, extra tight from the cold, doesn’t go unnoticed as he’s met with stark quiet stepping further inside. Cal must be out, so Dan’s home alone. 

It’s not like he _hates_ his flatmates. He’s just not the biggest people person. He _does_ hate the University accommodations though, and so he jumped at the offer from the two least annoying guys in his hall last year to split a three bedroom by campus. He was honestly too keen on the idea of staying in Manchester over the summer, not having to trudge back home, to really care about living with borderline strangers. 

They’re definitely very different. Early riser, workout-aholic Adam with his distracting thighs, questionable jokes, and even more questionable revolving door of girls. Dan’s just grateful he never hears them, only ever seeing them on their way in or out—not really the best performance review, but makes for a decent flatmate. 

Dan shares a wall with Callum, though he rarely ever sees him. He took on a second major after his first year, and then a second job. Dan’s not quite sure how he has the time to breathe, never mind to make the elaborate pasta dishes he always leaves out extra of or the soft strumming of acoustic guitar that fills the flat when he _is_ home. 

They’re also quite alright on the rare Sunday evenings when they’re all caught home at the same time. A few rank beers in, and Dan can usually pry them away from FIFA for Mario Kart. And depending on how many beers, he actually has to _try_ to stay in first place. So it’s fun. Definitely not all that bad. 

It could be worse. It could be nicer. Dan doesn’t mind coasting in the middle for now, thankful to be far as fuck from Wokingham while also daydreaming about a future of solitary living—or maybe even the pipe dream of living with someone that doesn’t completely drain his social battery with most interactions. 

But for now, it’s quite alright. 

Dan refuses to put much thought into how much that reflects a lot of other things in his life lately.

He puts a cap right on any creeping comparisons and turns the shower on to the hottest setting. He’s got something of a Christmas party to attend tonight, and he’s definitely not going to be turning any heads with this few days old, curling hair and wind-whipped cheeks. Doesn’t know if the shower will do his chapped lips any good, but he’ll at least make a valiant effort. 

Not like he’s trying to impress anyone there, or anything. Not like Phil will be there, looking every bit of every dream Dan has ever had all wrapped up into one, probably festive, package.

Not like Dan wants to look at least half as warm and inviting to Phil as he always is to him. 

Oh, who is he kidding? Dan rolls his shoulders once he’s under the stream, something much deeper melting away with the sigh that leaves his lips. 


	6. Chapter 6

The small avalanche of clothes flowing from Dan’s out of control laundry basket in his wardrobe out onto his floor is probably a sign that laundry is well overdue. 

Like most other signs, he ignores it—pulls a clean pair of pants from his near empty drawer and decides he’s got another few days before it’ll start to really become a problem. The towel around his waist drops to the floor, sucked into the sea of clothes he steps over to get to his wardrobe so he can locate something appropriate to wear. 

That something appropriate is, apparently, the white cable knit sweater hung at the very back of his wardrobe that he kind of forgot he had, and the mostly clean black jeans he pulled on this morning.

Looking at the few items hung before him and the piles scattered about his floor—mostly greys and blacks and not much of anything else—it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Dan owns absolutely nothing festive. He hopes, at least, that everyone will buy his weak excuse that he’s cosplaying as the concept of snow itself.

That’s definitely holiday attire, he decides with a once over in his mirror, his approving smile tugging down into a grimace at the sight of his damp, offensively curly hair. 

He double checks the time when he plugs in his phone, snorting as he skims his notifications. Apparently he forgot to turn it back off silent when he left the library, missing out on the group chat pinging at twenty messages a minute. Most of it is just PJ and Kelly getting into a bit of a row over a miscommunicated side dish while Phil interjects with selfies in various Christmas sweaters. 

Dan _definitely_ doesn’t pause his thumb on each of those. 

He keeps scrolling, gets to the bottom where it seems as though there has been some sort of potatoey truce, and clicks to tap out his own message. 

**dan:** _phil the blue one with the wiener_

**dan:** _DOG wiener dog_

**dan:** _smh fingers_

**char:** _Not what I was expecting to open my phone to, but ok_

**pj:** _Noo_

**pj:** _Spyro one cooler_

**phil:** _Ok!! thx dan ^_^_

**pj:** _Ok wooooow_

**char:** _U really think he was asking for any of OUR opinions?_

**kelly:** _pj u at sc yet? trying 2 tussle_

**phil:** _Have no idea what ur talking about o_O_

**pj:** _5 mins_

**phil:** _Dan dnt forget cockies!!!!_

**char:** _????????_

**phil:** _COOKIES****_

**pj:** _Jesus Christ_

**dan:** _wow_

**kelly:** _i hate it here i really do_

**dan:** _dw_ _i won’t_

**phil:** _ <333 _

**kelly:** _you know phil wouldn’t be dicks in chat if pj had just remembered he was supposed to do pie_

**char:** _PLEASE I just got u 2 to stop_

Dan shakes his head and sets his phone down before any new messages come in and make him late. He may or may not have forgotten about the cookies… 

He lets his hair dry the rest of the way while he wraps his secret Santa gift, probably not his smartest decision as the silver glittery wrapping paper sheds and sticks to his hands. He bought the roll the other day in a panic, remembering he actually had something he couldn’t just throw in a gift bag or one of those cards made to hold money. It was the least offensive option left in Tesco’s tiny selection, and he’s starting to become very offended by it. 

Despite the five whole minutes he spends at the sink scrubbing his hands, the flecks of glitter make their way into his hair when he runs his straighteners through it. After much fussing, it proves impossible to shake or pick out, so he eventually accepts his fate with one last fluff of his fringe and a sigh. 

At least he _really_ can’t be dress coded for festivity now, looking like one of those classy monochromatic Christmas displays personified. Somehow even his jeans are glinting in the hall light as he shoves his feet into his shoes and wraps himself up in layers. 

His black knit gloves catch on the paper when he tucks the gift under his arm to lock the door behind him, and he’s sure he’ll be absolutely covered by the time he makes it down the stairs. 

It’s trying its hardest to leave its mark on him. Dan finds very little humor in that. 

But he also does very little to stop it. 

It’s much colder outside with the sun now fully gone from the sky, kicking Dan’s pace into high gear as he walks the familiar route. He deviates from the norm along the way, making two quick stops that leave him with a bit of a balancing act at the shop’s door—an assortment of Tesco’s finest Christmas cookies stacked on Phil’s gift with their last two holiday drinks precariously placed atop the cookies so he can open the door. It’s like he’s asking for a disaster to happen, so when he makes it through without the slightest of spillage he’s actually properly proud of himself. 

“No, no that’s fine no one help Dan with the door.” Dan calls out the second he’s through the door, voice thick with sarcastic annoyance, eyes not yet leaving the Starbucks cup that’s settling down from its wobbling. 

“I was going to, but since you asked so nicely-” Dan looks up to see Charlotte make a whole deal out of stopping in her tracks to plop down in a chair, sitting back and crossing an ankle over a knee with a wicked smile on her face. 

Dan manages to direct a certain finger her way with the hand he just got the door open with. He gets it right back, her shiny red nail looking far too perfect for such a gesture. It’s the same shade as the bright lipstick smudge on her cheek, the same shade that smiles at him as Kelly appears in front of him and relieves him of the two teetering cups. 

He’s barely been inside for a minute and he already feels the warmth—reckons he still would even if the heating was off. As long as these people are around, Dan couldn’t possibly be cold. 

“Ignoring that,” Kelly nods upwards as she backs away, leading Dan’s eyes to the little bundle of green and red swinging over the door frame. 

“Fair-” 

“I’m not!” PJ does a drive-by in his Santa hat and a festive Star Wars jumper, taking the boxes in Dan’s hands and planting a big, wet lipstick-free kiss right on his cheek in one fell swoop. He’s already halfway across the room by the time Dan blinks and wipes his cheek with his glove, warm laughter spilling from his chest. 

He steps into the room as he starts to peel off all of his layers—dropping them onto what seems to be the designated outerwear bean bag chair, overflowing with coats and hats and scarves—and takes a wide eyed look around. 

A Christmas bomb has been set off, replacing the few tasteful festive additions that have popped up since the beginning of the month with a total assault of Christmas cheer—everything bright and tacky and twinkling. Any surface that isn’t hung in warm white and dancing rainbow fairy and icicle lights is absolutely covered in tinsel. Like, so much tinsel in every color imaginable Dan’s actually a little concerned if they’ve singlehandedly caused a tinsel shortage in the area. 

He’s also very glad he didn’t take John up on that job offer, because he’s sure Phil and PJ will be hoovering bits of shed tinsel well into the new year. 

The middle display table that’s often pushed back towards the till to make room for their D&D table is not only in a different spot than usual, but cleared of merchandise entirely. Wrapped boxes and gift bags are all settled nicely on its surface, PJ making a stop to drop Dan’s gift amongst them before bringing the boxes of cookies to the long plastic table in the center of the room. 

It also smells absolutely amazing, not an inch of dice rolling space left on the table with the spread laid out on it. A full ragtag assembly of a Christmas dinner, more tinsel looped around the dishes, and a few long lit candles in the center that are definitely going to become a fire hazard with the lot of them. John is making stops around it, filling plastic champagne flutes with something fizzy while Charlotte tips hers back and lifts it high for another refill. She’s loudly humming along to the music playing over the speakers, an incredibly loud, out of tune duet of _Little Saint Nick_ starting up when Kelly decides to join her. 

As he takes it all in, Dan reckons _this_ is how the holidays should feel. 

“Oh, Dan is here.” Dan pulls his gaze away from the mini Christmas tree on the counter by the till, looking over to the Phil that’s popped up in the backroom doorway. 

The incredibly pouty looking Phil, that is. His frown is so sad it’s almost cute, and Dan nearly manages to not get offended by it. 

“Gee, thanks bud,” Dan laughs. “Good to see you too.”

“That’s not-” 

“Sorry Phil, took your chance,” PJ cuts Phil off. He lifts a hand to ruffle at Phil’s hair on his way to his seat. Phil is quick to grab at his wrist, stopping the movement and, apparently, starting a battle. 

“What does that…” Dan starts but trails off, shaking his head. He knows he won’t get any semblance of an answer, watching Phil and PJ slap at each other’s hands. 

“Is anyone going to?” John nods to the play fight as he tops up Charlotte’s drink. 

“Think we should let ‘em,” Kelly says. 

“Yeah, it’s Christmas,” Charlotte adds. 

Dan shakes his head and pulls out his usual seat at the table, ignoring whatever violence is going on to admire the place settings. Sure it’s all paper and plastic and in garish shades of green and red, but there’s something incredibly thoughtful about it—all the way down to the incredibly sad looking red napkin… swans? He’s not too sure what animal he’s looking at, to be honest. 

“Did all of you do this? I would’ve come earlier to help,” Dan says, sitting down and picking up the mangled napkin creature. 

Charlotte snorts across the table. He doesn’t have to look up to see the eye roll that says: _sure you would_ to know it’s happening. 

“Phil did most of it, actually.” 

“Hey! I helped!” PJ ducks away from Phil and scampers off to his seat. Which apparently is a safe-zone, or something of a waved white flag, because Phil steps right past him, making his way over to his own seat. 

“Barely!” Kelly punctuates her point with a bread roll lobbed down the length of the table. PJ somehow manages to catch it before it hits him square in the nose, tossing it up in the air once before ripping a piece off to pop in his mouth. 

“So these are your doing?” Dan asks, softer, bonking the napkin against Phil’s bicep once he slides into the seat next to him. 

Phil nods, a wide smile taking over his face. 

Dan lifts a brow, looking between Phil and whatever the hell he’s holding in his hand. “And it is aaaa-” 

Phil’s face immediately goes all scrunchy, entirely offended. “It’s a pigeon, duh.”

“A pigeon?!” Dan screeches. 

“I told you no one would get them!” 

“Sure they do!” Phil contests. “Look, here’s the beak-” 

“A _pigeon?!”_

“-and then here’s the chip he picked up from the bin-” 

“A _bloody pigeon?!”_

“This one just looks like a brachiosaurus.” PJ lifts his green napkin creature up and- _actually,_ he’s not too far off with that one. 

“Nooo,” Phil shakes his head fervently, “that’s good old Nessie.” 

Kelly groans from across the table. “God, you’re so fucking weird.” 

“Why does that one look the _most_ like a swan?” John notes. 

“None of them are swans!” Phil huffs, crossing his arms. 

Dan drops his napkin to gently pat at Phil’s thigh, leaning into his side. “You did great,” he says softly, trying not to crack a smile. “I love my roadkill pigeon.” 

“Oh, I hate you,” Phil matches his tone, the rest of the group fading out of their little slice of the world. He wraps his hand around Dan’s to push it back into his own lap. 

Dan doesn’t miss the quick squeeze he gets before Phil lets go. 

As in, he makes a note of it—feels the jolt it sparks all the way through his body, leaving him with a lingering tingle. He definitely misses it in a different way as he folds his hands in his lap to stop himself from reaching back over. 

Whatever game this is, Dan is definitely losing. 

He’s thankful for last minute stops and the two red cups Kelly saved and set down at his spot at the table, Dan busying his twitchy, untrustworthy fingers with the task of spinning one around so he can decipher the sharpied code on the side. 

“This one’s the last hot chocolate,” Dan says to Phil, drumming his fingers against the side of the cup. “White chocolate mocha.” He pokes at the other. 

“Last two?” Phil asks. His shoulder presses warm against Dan’s as he leans in to slide one of the cups over, the coffee. 

“Last two,” Dan hums. “Reckoned we won’t make it before close tonight.” 

Phil hums as well, around the plastic lip of the cup—both sounds sounding awfully sad for a setting so festive and cheerful. He takes another sip, makes another low sound that Dan can at least peg as something of appraisal. 

Phil shakes his head, setting the coffee down on the other side of him, away from Dan. 

“Bad?” Dan asks. 

“Hmm, no. I’d say six elves out of ten, but I know you’d hate it.” Phil smiles at Dan, then looks over to the other cup between them. “Anything caramel gets a ten, so I don’t need to try that one.” He bumps his shoulder against Dan’s. “You can have it.”

The last remaining bits of ice in Dan’s bones from the walk over melt with Phil’s words. Sure they’ve spent the month analyzing drinks and it really wouldn’t take much to make note of what he finds particularly rank, but there’s just something there. Something that runs deeper than silly rating doodles on a crinkled Starbucks napkin. 

“We can share,” Dan says, just because he’s like that—because he’s still not used to being on the receiving end of kindness without any apparent ulterior motives. 

“If you insist.” Phil smiles, all cheek. He watches Dan carefully with that same smile as he leans over and grabs the drink, taking a tentative sip. 

Dan instantly shudders at the artificial sweetness, putting the offending beverage down and washing it down with the other. 

“Right.” Dan scrunches his nose. “That’s all you, then.” 

“Told you-”

_“Don’t.”_

“-so.” 

And not unlike every other instance Dan has sat down at this table, the evening starts off with endless laughter, a few projectiles, and a fair amount of playful shoves that nearly tip him out of his chair.


	7. Chapter 7

“Why did Santa’s helper start seeing a therapist?” 

“Seasonal depression?” Kelly suggests. 

“Mood,” Dan chuckles, absentmindedly flicking his index finger against the tab that makes his green plastic frog hop a short distance across the table. 

They’ve made a whole mess of popping their crackers, broken empty shells abandoned on the table and by their feet as they roll their eyes at bad jokes and cheap children’s toys. Dan had underestimated his grip, managing to pull the winning ends of both the crackers in each of his hands. But he was nice enough to share his spoils, didn’t even poke fun at Phil’s oddly large head once as he shook open the cheap blue tissue crown and delicately placed it on for him. 

Phil, on the other hand, nearly ripped Dan’s red crown trying to return the favor—damning himself to the punishment of getting the tiny protractor toy for his hastiness and crimes against Dan’s fringe, which now has a gap that neither of them can seem to fix. It would bother Dan more if not for the way his skin is still tingling from Phil’s fumbling fingers poking and brushing all around his face and hair. 

He kind of wishes he had more excuses to get Phil’s hands on his skin again. Something like endless paper crowns regardless of the season. 

“No,” John shakes his head, “because he has low _elf_ esteem!” 

“Booo!” Charlotte heckles with her hands cupped around her mouth. 

“I swear these get worse every year,” John says, crumpling up his bit of paper. 

“Wait,” Phil waves his around in the air, “I have a good one!” 

“Go on then, Phil,” Kelly says. 

“What do you-” Phil cuts himself off with his badly stifled giggles, pushing away the nosy Dan that’s leaning into his side to read the little strip of paper. “What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?” 

“Red snow,” PJ answers automatically. “Like yellow snow, but more sinister.” 

Phil shakes his head, smiling wide. “Frostbite!” 

There’s a collective groan around the table, a few mutterings of, “ _Awful,”_ and, “ _Horrible,”_ while Phil doubles over into Dan’s side with a hissy giggle through his teeth. 

Teeth that Dan can feel through the knit fabric of his sweater. Phil’s laughter only ceases as he bites at Dan’s shoulder—just a quick playful thing that’s over as quickly as Dan can take in a sharp, surprised breath, but a bite nonetheless. 

Dan lets the air back out in a low huff of a laugh, more shocked that he’s able to suppress the hum of pleasure desperate to leave his throat than he is by any of Phil’s actions. 

Phil mostly retreats back to his own space, still rattling with laughter where his arm stays pressed against Dan’s. Dan is apparently the only one that misses a beat, like _biting people_ is on the list of completely normal platonic friend things Phil does. 

Which, to be fair, mostly checks out. 

“I think we need to start dinner before the cannibal of the group starts making his rounds,” PJ says with a chuckle. 

“A Cannibal for Christmas, I’m writing that one down,” Kelly says. 

“Hallmark eat your heart out,” Charlotte quips, lifting her plate to accept the big serving spoon of potatoes PJ is offering. 

Kelly snorts, knocking her shoulder into Charlotte’s, nearly causing the second or third potato disaster of the evening. “ _Literally.”_

“Oh my god,” Dan laughs, lifting his own plate and nodding encouragingly as PJ goes in for a double scoop. 

“And you say the cracker jokes are bad.”

Kelly reaches across the table to skewer a slice of the roast with her plastic fork. “I think they would be well improved with a few gay writers,” she says. 

“Gay cannibal writers?” Phil asks, lifting his brows and cocking his head to the side. 

Kelly shakes her head. “Absolutely not.”

Phil makes the most over dramatic pouty face in response, his big, sad bottom lip jutting out in a way that makes _Dan_ feel compelled to bite. 

He probably shouldn’t be reaching for his plastic champagne flute instead, but he reckons it’s the lesser of two evils right now. 

Dan reckons he could also just simply look away. There’s really no need to constantly be looking to his side, probably putting some sort of permanent crick in his neck whenever Phil sits beside him, but that’s easier said than done. 

He takes a long sip as he watches Phil and Kelly threaten to fling ham at each other over the logistics of consuming human flesh and if gay cannibals are _actually_ lacking proper media representation. 

Phil’s cheeks are just barely starting to tinge a soft pink, a byproduct of all the warmth in the room—in every sense of the word.

Dan thinks he loves this Phil the most, unguarded and giggly, still pressing his knee against Dan’s under the table despite having all the room in the world. 

It’s easy to tune in and out of conversation like this, sipping champagne and just… _appreciating._

“Listen I might be on Phil’s side this time,” Charlotte waves her plastic fork in the air, “if they don’t want me to think villains are cool they’ve got to stop queercoding them.” 

“Why do you think I swapped Phil’s dice with a low roll rig after his solution to every problem was to seduce all my male NPCs,” PJ says casually. 

Phil’s knife pauses on his plate. He looks down the table at PJ with narrowed eyes. “You _what_?”

“In this situation are your NPCs the villains or is Phil?” Dan cuts in. 

Charlotte snorts. “I think we all know the answer to that.” 

“Hey!” Phil attempts to protest, but he can’t seem to manage the smug grin on his lips nor the clear pride in his eyes. “This is bullying,” he giggles. “Let birdboy be sexy.” 

“We release birdboy from horny jail when he stops his crusade to get us all killed.” 

“Horny jail canon in this universe?” 

PJ rubs at his chin, as if he’s actually debating it. “Hmm-”

“Wouldn’t any dungeon be considered horny jail because-” 

“Please don’t finish that sentence.” 

“That’s fine, you all have the mental picture now anyway.” Phil spears a roasted carrot and holds it out towards the potato that was just making its way into Dan’s mouth. Dan lets out a little huff and shakes his head with a fond smile, meeting Phil halfway and cheersing their forks. 

“Bon appétit,” Phil says as they do. 

“I’m too full to play Santa,” PJ whines. He leans further back in his chair, almost tipping as dangerously as Dan does whenever he’s particularly focused on a play, and rubs his stomach in large circles. 

Before Dan can even register the movement, every single person at the table has a finger on their nose. The corners of Phil’s eyes crinkle when Dan looks to the side, smug and sparkling in the fairy lights as he taps the finger he has on his nose a few times. 

“Ugh,” Dan groans, sliding down in his own chair and looking over at PJ. “You’re the one in the hat!” he tries, also not wanting to get up—honestly two seconds away from popping the top button of his jeans. 

“What’s fair is fair,” Charlotte says. 

“The noses don’t lie,” Kelly adds. 

“You two are the worst,” Dan rolls his eyes as he reluctantly pushes himself up, “you know that?” 

“That’s love!” Kelly beams, reaching out a hand from her spot tucked into Charlotte’s side to poke at Dan when he passes by them. 

“Gross.” Dan ducks out of the way. 

“No worse than you and Phil,” Charlotte teases. 

Dan stops in his tracks and twists to look at the backs of their heads—bright pink all smushed up against curly brown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. 

Kelly snorts and Charlotte lifts a hand to wave him off, neither of them turning to meet his gaze. 

“Oh, you know.” 

He looks to Phil across from them, flushed pink behind his champagne glass—though the color has been on his cheeks all evening. To PJ, muffling his laughter behind his hand. To John, darting out his hand to steady PJ from tipping backwards in his chair. 

Dan, definitely, does not know. 

For whatever reason, he doesn’t push it, turning back to the small mountain of gifts instead.

Sometimes he thinks he should feel like the odd one out, sometimes his brain tells him he _is._ But it doesn’t feel like that, and he can’t quite explain it, smiling down at the wrapped boxes and bags. It feels… like an opening. An extension rather than exclusion. 

And that may very well be exactly why he never pushes further, even though it’s all he wants to do. 

“Okay,” Dan says, taking himself out of his head and planting his brain firmly in the room, the present—the present objective, if you will. “How are we going to do this?” He starts to pick up packages, checking their name tags. “All at once?” 

“What if we roll initiative?” Phil suggests. 

“Wait, I love that,” PJ says. 

“I don’t have my dice with me though.” 

“Me either.” 

“I keep mine here!” PJ says, suddenly willing and able to pop up out of his chair and skip into the backroom without another word. 

Dan merely shakes his head, laughing with the table as he starts to set out everyone’s respective gifts. And when PJ returns with a handful of dice, Dan makes a point to flick the white ball of fuzz at the end of his Santa hat before he makes his way back to his seat. 

They all shuffle around, stacking plates and clearing away messes to make room for bouncing dice and unwrapping gifts. 

Laughter and excitement buzz around the table as they take their turns, making a whole game out of it—making guesses with a shake before ripping into paper, poking fun at some particularly _artistic_ wrapping styles, and everyone seemingly being very good at guessing which gifts are from whom without needing a second try. 

They all just get each other like that, it seems. Not only getting the perfect gifts for their recipient, but doing it in such a distinctly personal way that there’s no doubt about who it came from. Dan isn’t even sure he can say that about his own family Christmases, and for whatever reason the realization doesn’t squeeze his heart in a sad way—it warms it actually, right down to the very core. 

Fate always has its little laughs. And if it were real, Dan would be laughing right back in its face after giving him and Phil incredibly low rolls, making them two of the last three to open their gifts. 

Phil, of course, pouts and blames it on PJ—apparently a whole pandora’s box was opened earlier about dice rigging—but Dan actually feels a little relieved. 

Sure, it gives him more time to fret over Phil’s gift, worry if it was actually a horrible, horrible idea and all that, but it also eliminates the pressure of guessing—of proving that he fits in just as everyone else here—with so few people left. 

Dan almost starts to tip over the edge of believing, believing in something big and cosmic when he looks down at the thin, flat package in his hands. It has a little weight on it, more than one would expect for something just barely thicker than an A4 piece of paper, and it’s wrapped in a sleek black with a thick gold ribbon tied into a perfect bow just off center. 

His name is printed in some type font in the left corner, the gifter not even giving him handwriting to decipher. 

But it can really only be from one of two people, Dan puts the pieces together as he looks down at the wrapping. Either Charlotte or Phil—because he obviously didn’t buy himself a gift. 

It would be funny, if the two of them got each other. They’re really just two names out of a hat, and it wouldn’t be much different to how Kelly and PJ both got each other this year, but something- 

Dan wants something to be big about it. Maybe he wants the universe to intervene at this point—perhaps he’s ready. 

As he starts to tug at the gold bow, he resolutely tells himself that if this ends up being a sign, he’ll listen for once. He shakes it off with an actual, audible joke about cringing over ruining the perfectly tied bow—receiving soft laughter around the table and a little kick to his foot from under the table to just get on with it. 

And so he does. 

When the paper falls to the table and there’s nothing but a thin black picture frame in his hands, Dan’s mouth drops open. He goes as far as making a soft, surprised sound in the back of his throat, genuinely touched at the art in the frame. 

It’s the most beautiful rendering of his current D&D character, exactly how he’s always imagined them. The sullen, but somehow iridescent skin, the twisty curling horns at the base of their head, the long, powerful tail, and even the trendy as fuck black and silver cloak they managed to find in a chest a few dungeons back. Absolutely every _single_ little detail Dan has ever laid out is right in front of him, personified. 

And it’s in… PJ’s art style? 

Dan looks up from the frame, only noticing the budding wetness at his eyes with the way the twinkle lights hung behind PJ’s head blur at the edges. 

“ _You?_ ” Dan asks, confusion heavy on his tongue—because PJ had already revealed himself as Kelly’s gifter. 

PJ just smiles wide, shaking his head. 

There’s a soft kick at his foot again, Dan looking back across from him to a lopsided red smile. His lip nearly trembles as they exchange a soft, wordless glance. 

“Commissioned PJ for it,” Charlotte says after a moment. “Hope you like it.” 

Maybe he’s overtired, perhaps he’s had more champagne than he thought—but Dan is absolutely touched. 

“Char…” Dan starts, but she cuts him off with a hand. 

Charlotte sniffs once before a neutral expression takes over her face. 

“Don’t you dare make me cry, nerd,” she says with a twitch at the corner of her mouth. An awfully gentle threat. 

Dan looks back down at the art, brushing his thumb against the side of the frame. “Thank you,” he says, earnestly. “This- I love it,” he settles on. 

“‘M glad.” Dan gets another kick to his foot. He gives one right back, feeling his throat go tight as he swallows and tries to re-collect his damn mushy self. 

If luck was one of those big universe things he let himself believe in, Dan reckons he would have to call himself proper lucky having friends like these. 

“If I wasn’t unwrapping this, I’d guess that it was from _me_ ,” Phil laughs as he tries, and fails, to rip into the silver glitter wrapping. It’s proper thick, Dan noted that when he was wrapping, some sort of industrial paper meant to look pretty whilst keeping everyone out.

Phil wipes his hands against each other to shake off the glitter to no avail, making the whole room fill with laughter as his hands only shine more. He eventually gives up with his tongue between his teeth and shaking shoulders, his fumbling hands flipping the package over to slide a finger under the tape. 

Dan’s heart beats with anticipation and… something else. Something he can’t pinpoint exactly, a flipping fluttering feeling in the pit of his stomach. Nerves, probably. He still has no idea what Phil’s reaction will be. 

He may very well hate it. 

Dan bites his lip, instinctually holding his breath as Phil finally rips away the paper and turns the rectangular box the right way around. He wants to look away as Phil mouths the name of the game, eyes scanning across the brightly colored box, but the second he decides to Phil is snapping his head to the side, looking at Dan with the softest eyes and smile he thinks he’s ever seen. 

It makes it all very hard to continue breathing—Dan so prepared for confusion or outright questioning that he wasn’t at all expecting the game to drop to the table, Phil pouncing on him to wrap his arms around his shoulders, burying his face in his neck as he squeezes him in appreciation. 

“ _Oh,”_ Dan says gently, soft like the puff of air that manages to leave his chest as he returns the hug with a tentative hand at Phil’s back. He gets another tight squeeze and a hushed, _“Thank you_ ,” whispered just to him before they pull back and settle into their own seats. 

Dan kind of feels like he’s been doused in accelerant and lit aflame with one of the tall candles in the center of the table. 

“How’d you guess that so quickly?” Dan tries to stamp it out, brush it off, but the question comes out far too floaty—almost slurred as if he’s had far more than a mere few sips of cheap champagne. 

Phil laughs, all low and hearty as he rips into the cellophane to get the box open. “Process of elimination,” he says, looking at Dan with a devious smirk. Dan’s far too warm to start feeling like an idiot—well, at least over forgetting that Phil was the last person to go. 

His brain is entirely elsewhere. Still on Phil—but elsewhere. 

“And also, you’re the only other one covered in glitter,” Phil adds before getting back to inspecting his new game. 

Dan looks from Phil’s pink cheeks to his shimmering hands, then to his own. Those tiny fucking sparkles reflect in the twinkling lights hung all around them as he wiggles his fingers. He bites back a smile, instinctually fluffing his fringe as he looks down at his lap to try to hide it. 

He feels like he could _burst_. 

“We should play!” Phil actually bounces in his seat with the exclamation, already starting to unpack all the cards and bits before anyone gets a word in edgewise. Dan just nods with that stupid, permanent grin on his face—his mouth honestly a little dry. 

“You’re really asking me to perform heteronormativity right now?” Charlotte asks with a little huff, but when Dan looks up, she’s got a similar smile on her slightly red stained lips. 

“Aw, come on babe,” Kelly squeezes at her shoulder, pulling her closer and giving a little encouraging shake that Charlotte tips her head into, “you’ll finally get use out of that drama minor of yours.” 

Charlotte’s face immediately scrunches up. “ _Hey!”_ She half heartedly bats at Kelly’s side, but doesn’t once pull away. 

“Yeah,” Phil says, bright, ignoring whatever lover’s quarrel is happening in front of him. “All the world’s an oyster,” he declares, looking at Charlotte with an encouraging smile. 

Her brows tug together, smile dropping. “Excuse me?” 

“You know,” Phil shrugs—like it’s obvious. “Like that acting thing they say.” 

The room is quiet for all of three, very long seconds before the entire table erupts in uncontainable laughter. 

Phil looks at all of them like _they’re_ the odd ones. And, you know what, perhaps they are. 

“Phil,” Charlotte grips at her sides as she tries to breathe without hiccuping, “I swear to god you did not come from this planet.” 


	8. Chapter 8

Dan has, somehow, managed to end up with a hoover in his hand. 

It began with the puppy dog eyes from PJ when everyone started to set off a whole chain of yawns—something about having to open early tomorrow before traveling home in the afternoon and still needing to pack. Then there were the same wide, pleading eyes from Phil after he agreed to help tidy, until all of them eventually caved and started to pick up some of the slack. 

Well, all of them except for Charlotte, who is currently curled up in the bean bag covered in coats by the door, sound asleep. She put up a valiant effort though, got as far as taking down the garland taped around the front door frame—the same string that she’s using as a pillow in conjunction with someone’s tartan scarf. 

Dan clicks off the hoover once he’s decided the majority of the shed tinsel damage has been collected and starts to round up the cord to put it away. Phil—evil, evil Phil—passes by him on his way to the backroom, stopping him only to loop one of the itchy tinsel garlands right around his neck. 

Dan huffs something like, " _Horrible,"_ all soft and fond under his breath, ignoring Phil’s claims of added festivity as he continues past him. He hides his wide smile in the safety of the empty room, tugging at the tinsel choker so it’s a little less tight—but no less itchy—once he sets the hoover down. 

He doesn’t take it off, because he’s so far gone like that—would probably sustain an entire rash or allergic reaction if whatever the cause brought a smile to Phil’s face. 

Which is, fucked really. But Dan’s too happy to care. 

Or just… overtired. That’s probably it. 

Phil clicks his tongue when they meet back up in the main room, stepping dangerously close and reaching around to unwrap the hell tinsel from Dan’s neck. 

“Didn’t think you’d actually keep it on,” he says as he bunches the garland up and tosses it in the general direction of the party decor box to Dan’s left. Dan follows the movement, snorts when Phil misses, tinsel smacking against the side of the box and sliding to the floor, no doubt shedding more bits on the carpet. 

Phil’s laughing too, Dan can feel the huff of breath on his cheek like warmth that somehow shoots ice down his spine. He snaps his head forward, a little shocked intake of breath taken from his chest with how _close_ Phil actually is. 

His eyes flash from dark, to that twinkling blue in the lights that they’ve left up. They’re indecipherable in that way Phil gets, when it seems like he’s making sure they aren’t being read. Dan doesn’t see that quite often, not anymore at least. It reminds him of the first few months they knew each other, that difference between an open Phil and a guarded Phil. 

This, he can’t distinguish. And he holds his breath as Phil lifts a hand between them. 

“You’ve got a-” Phil says, quiet, only in the air between the two of them. Dan’s heart stutters, melts entirely at the firm—but gentle—press of Phil’s thumb just under his right eye. His eyes actually flutter shut somewhere between his heart rebooting, his lungs refilling with air. 

They blink open again when there’s a few more swipes against his skin, followed by a breathy giggle and an, “ _Oops.”_

Phil is biting at his bottom lip, looking at Dan with a tilt of his head and appraising eyes. 

“ _Wot?_ ” Dan asks, soft and low. He’s surprised his mouth actually forms words—or, well, _word_ —in lieu of just… surging forward. 

Phil giggles again, unreadable eyes going a bit more wide and guilty—incredibly puppy-like. 

“You’ve just got-” Phil puts the hand that was just on Dan’s face over his own mouth to stifle his laughter. Dan wants to grab him by the wrist and pull it away, just so he can watch the way those teeth are always biting at his lip, his tongue—all of it really. “You’ve got glitter _all_ over your face,” Phil finally manages to get out. “Think I made it worse.” 

“Oh nooo,” Dan groans, so half-hearted and transparent by the dopey smile on his face. “I’m going to be finding glitter in crevices for _weeks_.” He does, genuinely, complain. “That wrapper paper was a miss stake,” he punctuates each syllable, making the corners of Phil’s eyes crinkle even more. 

“It’s so good though,” Phil says with light laughter, hand coming back to Dan’s face. “Worth the mess.” He tugs a bit at the very tips of Dan’s fringe, right above his eye, brushing more of the glitter away. 

Or, adding more glitter to it. Dan can’t be too sure. 

“Hey,” Phil says suddenly, cocking his head to the side and doing a little step back, leaving Dan with entirely too much personal space and a messed up fringe. “You got a haircut,” Phil states—or asks, with the way his inflection lifts and his head flip flops back and forth as he looks Dan over. 

Dan nods, lifting a hand to flick at his fringe and fix whatever damage was done. He wills the warmth at his cheeks to settle down. 

It’s not like he’s going to outwardly tell Phil he brought a picture of him to the hairdressers in a fit of jealousy over his hair—how perfectly it falls over his forehead, frames his face in the exact style he likes. 

The outcome is definitely not as good—Phil’s hair seems to fall so effortlessly, even looking attractive when it goes a bit bird’s nest-y—but Dan’s at least looks halfway decent when it’s straightened, and he hopes the fresh cut will prevent his dad from spending half of Christmas complaining about his son’s _“gay hair.”_

He won’t say any of that aloud, but it’s embarrassing all the same—even from the safety of his own mind. 

He like, really, took one of Phil’s blurry camera phone selfies and went: _yes, I’d like to order one of those please,_ and he’s going to have to take that to his grave if he ever wants to live it down. So he just nods, hums in the back of his throat as Phil—for whatever reason—continues to look him up and down. 

“S’nice,” Phil smiles, “I like it.” 

That’s all it takes for the fire under his skin to burn freely. “Thanks,” Dan says, looking down at their feet in an attempt to hide his blush. 

“Phil!” Kelly bursts through their bubble, coming up behind Phil and pushing up on her tippy toes to rest both hands on his shoulders. “Is Dan coming tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow?” 

“Oh I-” 

“Since PJ is diiiitching us,” Kelly interrupts both of them in a sing song, looking right at PJ with accusatory eyes as he passes them by. 

“ _Hey!_ ” PJ furrows his brows, stopping in his tracks with his tower of paper plates. “I had Phil switch shifts with me a _month_ ago so I could head home early, you can’t call that ditching.” 

“You’re.” Kelly leans over to bop PJ right on the nose. “Ditching.” 

“Am not,” PJ retorts as he backs away from the three of them, dramatically rolling his eyes for emphasis when Kelly starts to protest. 

“Anyway,” she says when she realizes she’s lost PJ’s ear. “Dan are you coming?” 

“I literally have no clue what’s going on,” Dan says. 

“You didn’t ask him?” Kelly flicks at Phil’s ear, ruffles his hair in a way that somehow only makes it look better. 

_“Ow!”_ Phil pushes her off his shoulders, lifting a hand to rub at his ear. He directs his attention to Dan, the scowl on his face turning to a soft smile. “I didn’t know if you’d want to go or not, and then I kept forgetting to ask…” 

“We’re going to see the lights on Canal,” Kelly says for him. “And there’s some sort of festive drag night, or karaoke...” She scrunches her brows together, tapping a finger against her lip as she pauses to think. “Festive drag karaoke, maybe, I don’t know, but it’s gonna be fun! You should come!” 

Dan bites his lip, looks from Kelly’s expectant expression, bouncing a little on her toes, to Phil. 

Phil, who is mirroring Dan’s expression, his lip pinging free from his teeth when he catches Dan’s eye. A soft smile replaces it. 

“You want me to come?” Dan asks, soft as if Phil is the only one in earshot. 

The corners of Phil’s eyes crinkle as his smile grows wider. He does something between a shake and a nod with his head and Dan is too far gone to care about the consequences. 

“Of course I do,” Phil says, matching Dan’s tone. 

Dan smiles, looking back to Kelly so his lungs can refill. “I don’t dance-” 

“Oh booo,” Kelly interrupts, scrunching up her nose and punctuating with a thumbs down. 

“I also don’t sing.” Dan ignores her protests, smiling anyway. “But I’ll come.” 

Kelly rolls her eyes, stepping closer to put a hand on his shoulder to give him a little squeeze and a shake. “We’ll have you doing ballet with Phil on the bar top in no time,” she says with a smug smile and one more squeeze before skipping away. 

“Come on, love, time to get up,” she calls to the bundle on the bean bag chair as she makes her way towards it, pointedly ignoring the stuttering noises of confusion and protest leaving Dan’s mouth. 

“She’s joking, right?” Dan asks Phil, unsure if he should be concerned or not. Phil, definitely, doesn’t seem like the party animal type. But every week it seems that Dan is reminded he’s just barely scratched the surface that is the beautiful mystery of Phil, so he can never be so sure. 

They’ve also, somehow, never hung out beyond the walls of this shop, Starbucks, and the short path of pavement that leads halfway to his flat. So he really has no basis of judgement here. 

Phil, the absolute demon, only does something absolutely ridiculous with his eyebrows, waggling them around before getting overtaken with a laugh that fills every corner of the shop and carries him to the door. 

Dan sighs softly to himself as he watches Phil walk away, all long legs and hips he wants to reach out for, to squeeze and pull him back into his space. 

He doesn’t do that, of course. He takes a moment, clears his head with a little shake and a deep breath and trails after him instead. 

They leave just as Dan came—all wrapped up in their layers with their hands full, caught under a gently swinging bundle of green and red. 

The wind whipped at their cheeks the second Dan pushed open the door, bringing both of their eyes directly up with the way the forgotten mistletoe began to swing out of control. 

Dan coughs, feeling the chill of the glass door permeate through his glove as he keeps it open, frozen in place with his eyes locked above their heads. 

He could do it—push away from the door and settle himself against Phil’s chest, find out the answer to the question he’s always wondered, see for himself if those lips are as soft as they look. A sign, an opportunity, a chance to laugh it off and claim risking bad luck if it all goes wrong, because unlike Dan, Phil believes in those kinds of things. It would work. 

But—there’s always a but—he can’t. 

Dan looks away from the hanging plant that’s wrapped itself around the muscle in his chest, takes in a sharp breath at the way blue eyes are already trained on him—a knit brow, a bitten lip. He watches Phil’s tongue dart out, swiping against his bottom lip and nearly whines, nearly melts into Dan flavored goo right on the cold pavement under his feet. 

It aches inside him, wanting something so badly it starts to physically _hurt._

Dan turns his head to the side, swallows hard as he looks away from those wide eyes that are absolutely nothing but trouble for him, and gives his right cheek a few taps with his gloved finger. 

“Peej already got the other side, might as well even it out,” he tries to say casually, tries to brush it off with a little shrug and nonchalance, but his voice comes out all wrong—too soft, too broken.

“Yeah?” Phil matches his tone, unsure. 

“Yeah,” Dan says, smiling softly. And he doesn’t even breathe as Phil leans in, pressing the softest ghost of a kiss right to the dimple that caves into his cheek. 

When Phil steps away, Dan lets out his breath in a shudder, watching the wisp of steam in the cold air dissipate as the city falls quiet. 

“Ready to go?” Phil asks from his side, the shop keys jangling in his hand. 

Dan hums, “Yeah, yeah,” and pushes away from the door, finally letting himself look over at the pink dusting the peaks of Phil’s cheeks as they fall into step. 

Phil hugs his new game tight to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself and making the cutest little ‘ _brr’_ noise that makes Dan want to physically fist fight the cold—the weather and its audacity to make Phil anything but completely comfortable and content. Dan wants to pull him close to his side, share his warmth. Or even take his own jacket off entirely to drape it around Phil’s arms in hopes that it could make him even the tiniest bit warmer. 

He’d do it, if he was brave. If he wasn’t so in his own head and feelings that he’s unable to do anything but let their shoulders brush and bump together every few steps as they walk along the pavement. 

The ache is nearly as icy as the cold. 

There’s an electric charge flowing down Dan’s spine as they walk in a comfortable quiet—only between the two of them, the city buzzes loud in Dan’s ears. 

He feels… antsy. Pent up. Like he could walk past the closed Starbucks and up a few streets five times over and still have energy to expel, like if he lets himself stop moving he’ll simply fall to pieces. 

It’s why he doesn’t stop when they reach the crossroads. Where Phil will go right and Dan will go left, Dan merely gives a glance down the road in the opposite direction, looks back to the paused Phil beside him and lets out a cloud of breath. 

“Mind if I walk you home?” He asks in a voice that sounds far more confident than he feels. 

“I’d love that,” Phil says, not even missing a beat. 

And maybe, maybe whatever pace this is is okay. Dan feels everything settle to a low hum as they both take a right, Phil bumping into his side and not taking that usual step away—feeding on his warmth as the energy transfers. It’s much easier to handle when he’s not carrying it all alone. 

Slow, is the pace they walk, not even noticing as the cold seeps into their bones. Slow, is the pace Dan takes when Phil stops them outside his building, turning to Dan to ask if he wants to come up. 

He shakes his head, watches the steam float between them as he breathes out his answer. Phil takes it, matches it with a smile that climbs all the way to his eyes before stepping backwards towards his steps on feet that only stumble once or twice. 

Dan pauses, stuck to the pavement until he watches Phil disappear into the lift through foggy glass doors. He pulls his scarf tighter around his neck as he turns away, closing the gaps that are letting in the cold. 

It’s a slow walk—leaves his lungs stinging, and his eyes don’t defrost until he’s been back in the warmth of his flat for an hour—but he needs it. 

Needs it like the way he needed to pull off his right glove with his teeth as he walked, pressing the pads of his cold fingers to the scorching spot on his cheek the entire way home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> louise told me cheek kissies were still slowburn so she takes the blame not me


	9. Chapter 9

A groan fills the room as the light coming in through the crack of the blinds becomes increasingly hard to ignore. Dan stretches as he rolls over, a leg peeking out of the warmth of his blankets, and hard thud echoes around the room, his phone sliding off the edge of his bed and onto the floor. 

He’s got to stop falling asleep with it tucked under his pillow. 

A little hum of a whine leaves his throat as he stretches out a long arm, patting at the cold floor until his hand wraps around his slightly less cold iPhone. 

It’s not like sleeping in is unusual for Dan, but he cringes when the screen lights up, displaying it’s already half past noon. He cringes again as he unlocks it, his phone automatically opening to the screen he locked it on late last night: his text thread with Phil. 

It’s actually rare for them to stray away from the group chat, there’s never really any reason—but Dan, apparently, didn’t think twice last night about clicking off it to tap out a message to Phil. He guesses it was fueled by an anxious mind, a throbbing heart, his inability to keep his brain on the words he was reading over and over on the first few pages of Hamlet. 

When he rereads things like this, knowing how the story goes, knowing the words as if he’s staged to perform them on his own, it’s odd that he’s unable to follow along. Even when he’s glazing over the words, mind wandering elsewhere as he skims, he’s not pulled completely out of them. 

Last night, though, last night was an anomaly—Dan’s thoughts constantly scrambling back to exactly what he was trying to avoid that he had no choice but to set the book down on his desk with a sigh, sliding down his propped up pillows in bed to curl around himself, picking up his phone instead. 

He couldn’t find comfort in the avoidance, so he dipped his toe just ever so over the edge. 

**dan:** _hi sorry if i was weird earlier_

**dan:** _brain just ???_

Dan cringes as he stares at his—even weirder—messages, smiles softly at Phil’s response. 

**phil:** _Brains doing brain stuff?_

**phil:** _In their brain juices o.o_

He huffs out a laugh just as he did last night, his smile only growing wider. 

**dan:** _god phil_

**dan:** _goodnight_

**phil:** _Night dan <3 x_

He fell asleep not soon after, still curled up on his side after sliding his phone under his pillow—not putting any stake in how easily his mind simmered down to a hushed quiet. 

Dan sighs, lets it rip a yawn from his chest as he rubs at his eyes before looking at his phone again. Since he’s already here… 

His fingers fly across the keyboard without a second thought. 

**dan:** _forgot to ask what the deal with tonite is_

He waits—busies himself with the task of rolling out of bed, pulls on a hoodie from the floor and pads across the hall to the bathroom with another yawn. He takes his phone with him—of course he does. It teeters on the edge of the sink as he has a wee and brushes his teeth, Dan hyper aware of its existence despite knowing that Phil has probably just gotten to work and won’t be responding for quite a while. 

He keeps an eye on it like a hawk regardless, takes the sharp buzz of its double vibrate like a shock to the heart while he’s sliding bread into the toaster. 

Dan wipes invisible crumbs on the front of his hoodie and picks up his phone, another two buzzes in his hand as he leans against the counter and unlocks it. 

**phil:** _Want to meet @ space cows?_

**phil:** _I get off at 8!!_

**dan:** _yh sure_

**phil:** _^_^ ok!!_

By Dan’s standards, that leaves him with nearly a full day to do the things he needs to get done, enough tasks to stave off the anticipatory anxiety over meeting up with Phil outside of gameplay—and also, the whole going to a club thing. 

He tries not to think about it too much, making a mental list—laundry, revising, more laundry, more revising—as he pours his coffee and spreads his last bit of butter on nearly burnt toast. 

A nap was not on the list. 

Neither was a second serving of toast eaten in the crease of the sofa with some shitty Saturday afternoon home renovation show on the telly, but— _well_ —these things happen, he guesses. 

He _does_ get as far as emptying the sink of a few day’s worth of coffee mugs and generic IKEA plates, actually manages to get all of his dirty laundry _into_ his laundry basket with it shut away behind his wardrobe door. The base level cleanliness apparently soothes his chaotic brain enough to instantly pass out on his bed after diving on it to dig out the philosophy textbook he knew slid between his mattress and the wall a few days back. 

When he wakes again, the light coming from behind his curtains is dim. 

It’s a whole flurry of panic once he locates his phone jammed between his rib and the bed, looking at the time—and its battery percentage. He plugs it in and flies around the flat, nearly undoing his ‘tidying’ progress with the small tornado of finding something to wear. 

There’s victory in a grey cardigan and clean pair of jeans hidden in his bottom dresser drawer, Dan pulling on a random white and grey graphic tee and shimmying into said jeans while his straighteners heat to an ungodly temperature. He fries his hair—gets it kind of fucking perfect, actually—and shoves his toothbrush in his mouth again for good measure. 

That’s how Callum bumps into him in the hall, cooling GHDs in one hand as he scrubs at his teeth, one-footed hopping back into his room while he tugs a black sock over his heel. 

“Hot date?” he asks, watching with amusement from the safety of his door frame as Dan flings his straighteners onto the top of his dresser and locates his second sock. Dan makes a noise, shakes his head as he re-emerges. 

“Just meeting up with a few mates,” Dan says after spitting into the sink. He bends down and cups his hand under the tap, rinsing out his mouth and thanking whatever higher powers that are out there that he didn’t just dribble down the front of his tee shirt. 

“Be out late then?” Dan hears Cal call from somewhere in his own room, paired with the thunking of his backpack on the floor and the slide and slam of a few of his dresser drawers. 

Dan dips his head around the door frame, giving Callum an easy smile. “Dunno,” he answers honestly. “I’ll be quiet though.” 

He’s flashed bright white teeth in response. “Thanks,” Callum says, the roll of his tired shoulders palpable. 

It makes Dan feel quite shit about his absolutely unproductive lazy day, to be honest. But as he darts back into his room, rounding up the rest of his things and checking the time on his phone, Dan has negative five minutes to dwell on any particularly strong feelings of guilt. 

“Hey,” Dan pauses by the kitchen, stepping just over the threshold. Callum lets the door of the cabinet his head was just poked into swing shut, humming in acknowledgement. “Does this,” Dan makes a general, awkward gesture over his outfit with his hand, “look alright?” 

Callum laughs, light and not teasing. He crosses his arms as he leans a hip against the counter, looking Dan up and down. “Proper fit,” he decides. 

“Oh, good,” Dan rushes out, “Thank you.” He punctuates his words with a salute, turning on his heel towards the front hall. 

“So no hot date?” Callum calls after him, now laying it on thick. 

Dan huffs a laugh to himself as he tugs on his parka, slipping his feet into his trainers. He vetoes his winter beanie, deciding ear frostbite is worth the good hair day. 

“No hot date!” he calls back—somehow feeling like he’s just told his favorite flatmate a lie. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voiding myself for the weekend again in hopes that i can play enough catchup to post every day next week! but who would i be if i didn't say hi if ur reading this in live time did u KNOW there's a gay lifetime christmas movie airing tomorrow night and THEN a gay COWBOY paramount christmas movie airing on sunday????!!!!!!!!!! that is where i will be this weekend idk about yall


	10. Chapter 10

“I’m late,” Dan huffs, frigid air burning his lungs as he jogs up to the shop. “I’m late,” he wheezes, skidding to a stop and doubling over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. 

In retrospect, ringing Phil to tell him he was running late would’ve been a better idea than quite literally… _running_ late. But Dan has never been known to make the smartest decisions, and punctuality isn’t really his strong suit. 

“I’m sorry,” Dan says, straightening up once he’s caught his breath. 

Phil turns from the door he’s just finished locking up, flashing Dan a playful smile. “You’re not late,” he says matter-of-factly, eyes twinkling even in the dulled light of the lamps lining the street. 

Phil is also… ridiculous. One of those red plaid button ups he loves, buttoned all the way to the top, is peeking out from his half zipped coat—the zipper honestly looking a little wonky. In another world, Dan reaches out, unzips him just to zip him up right. And while he’s there, reaches up to fix the goddamn reindeer antlers on his head as well—the headband, too, just the slightest bit crooked. 

He does neither of those things though. Phil’s antlers do a little jingle as he looks down with his chin to his chest to fix the coat conundrum himself. 

“Yes I-” Dan shakes his head. “Do I have the time wrong?” He shimmies his hand into his jeans pocket to pull out his phone, but Phil stops him. 

“Nope.” The smile on Phil’s face goes more… conspiratorial—too much mirth behind his eyes. “Told you eight when I meant half past,” Phil says, clearly very proud of himself. “We’re all meeting up at nine.” 

“Oh you-” Dan steps into Phil’s space to shove at his shoulder. Phil jingles with it. 

Phil laughs, loud and uncontained. It doesn’t get swallowed up by the busy city streets. In fact, it carries over, bouncing around the walls of Dan’s brain and leaking right through the drafty windows. 

At least Dan can blame his pink cheeks on all that exertion of doing an exercise. 

Phil swings his keyring around his finger once, twice, then slides them into his jacket pocket, looking at Dan with a slight tilt of his head. And a jingle. 

“Have you eaten yet?” Phil asks. 

Dan shrugs. “I could eat.” 

“Good. Come on,” Phil nods up the opposite way from which Dan came, making sure he’s by his side before taking off. “I skipped lunch because of the last minute nerd Christmas gift rush and I think I’ll die if I don’t get something bready or greasy in me.” 

“Sounds good to me,” Dan says with a soft chuckle—everything feeling exactly right as he puts a little more weight on one foot, bumping into Phil’s shoulder. Phil nudges him back. 

And it’s definitely the competitiveness that turns the whole thing into a game, the two of them going back and forth over quiet conversation all the way to the chippy a few streets over. 

The overhead lights are too bright, sterile in that way that strains Dan’s eyes, and it smells like the sea was just doused in vinegar, but Dan wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. 

It’s just the two of them in the little shop—three, he supposes, if you count the guy occasionally clanging pots and pans around in the back behind the counter—and Dan’s been hard pressed to take his eyes off Phil across him. 

He’s just… so _pretty._ Unnaturally dark hair framing pale skin. The most unbelievable shade of pink moving as he giggles, and tosses chips in his mouth. Eyes so blue, the longer he looks the more colors he finds. Phil is absolutely unreal. 

Quite possibly the only thing keeping Dan on Earth are the sporadic taps of the toe of Phil’s shoe against Dan’s shin—as if he’s unaware his leg isn’t the post of the table. Dan kicks him back a few times, sipping at his water with a badly concealed smile around his straw. Phil smirks back, letting the side of his foot run up Dan’s calf and effectively ruining any chances Dan had for not losing his cool. 

He loses his mind, really, loses any grasp on the reality in which he isn’t head over heels for his best friend. He’s so fucking tired of holding on to that particular ledge he’s starting to wonder if the fall will really be all that bad if he lets go. 

All he’d have to do is let go. It seems simple, seems easy as he memorizes the colors of Phil’s eyes, but it’s not. 

It’s so fucking hard. 

He wonders if it might be worth it. The thought alone makes him snort to himself, tuning back into Phil’s chaotic story of one of today’s customer interactions. As if he’d ever have to question that. 

Dan loses Phil’s eyes as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, frowning down at it as his antlers start to slide down his head. He can’t help himself, reaching across the small table to push them back up for him, fingers lingering in the plush of the headband, the softness of Phil’s hair. 

“Chin up, furry boy,” Dan says with a laugh, letting a hand trail down the side of Phil’s jaw, “you’re gonna lose your ears.” 

With Dan’s index finger under his chin, Phil looks up with a bright smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as he laughs. Dan lets his hand drop and retreats back to his seat as Phil shakes his head. 

“I hate you so much,” Phil says, sounding quite the opposite. 

Dan huffs, smiling. “Feeling’s mutual,” he winks. 

Phil lifts his phone in his hand. “Char’s blowing me up,” he explains. 

“Ooo, kinky.” 

“Shut up,” Phil laughs, “they’re already there apparently.” 

“Oh,” Dan sits up straighter in his seat, “we should probably-”

“Before we leave!” Phil interrupts him, frantically twisting and wiggling around for his coat slung over the back of his chair. After much shuffling, he turns back around, something procured from his coat pocket in the closed fist of his hand. “I have something for you,” he says, softer, pushing their empty paper boats to the side with the back of his hand and opening his palm in the center of the table: an offering. 

It’s mostly unassuming, a fat black pouch with little silver stars and moons all over. It’s funny that the consensus in the friend group seems to be that Dan isn’t a red and green kind of guy. It warms his heart, actually. It’s not like he’s The Grinch, or starting any wars on Christmas, but he does have certain tastes, things he likes that he didn’t realize other people cared enough to pick up on. 

Until now, at least. 

Phil nudges his hand over, encourages Dan to take the cinched bag with a sheepish smile, a brief bite of his bottom lip. Dan sure as hell can’t say no to that. 

The pads of his fingers brush against Phil’s palm as he takes it, probably far more gingerly than needed, and he doesn’t let go of the breath he sucks in until he’s pulled the puckered opening taut. He peers into more black, until the light overhead catches on something that glints and he immediately puts the pieces together. 

“You didn’t,” Dan gasps, mouth hanging open as he tips the bag over and a full set of dice come clacking out onto his big, open palm. 

They’re absolutely beautiful. A clear translucent resin with what looks like little puffs of smokey black, grey, and opaque white effortlessly blown through them. Dan picks the D8 up and holds it to the light, pinches between his thumb and index finger. The silver numbers on each side glitters as he rotates it, marveling at how much they look like perfect little plumes of smoke captured and trapped in time. They’re all different too, he notes as he drops the D8 and picks up another, this one looking more like a thick black ink spilled into gently rocking water—absolutely beautiful. And so very _Dan._

The whole set is completely unique, something Dan’s never seen before. Not in the shop, nor during any late night browsings drooling over custom sets he never thought he could afford, never mind deserved. 

And here Phil is, just... getting it absolutely perfect. He’s so spot on that Dan is rendered speechless. 

“I know you liked mine,” Phil says, his arm still stretched over the table, poking a finger at one of the D10s in Dan’s palm, “at least, I hope you do and you weren’t like, being sarcastic.” He looks up, and Dan meets his eye, letting out a little chuckle at how wide and concerned they are. 

It’s ridiculous to think that Phil knows him _this_ well and yet could still be worried. 

Phil’s dice set instantly caught Dan’s eyes the very first time they played. A beautiful custom mismatched set of purples and aquas—the resin only slightly translucent with an iridescent shift when held up to the light. Every number on each die hand painted a different shimmering color, the full spectrum of the rainbow. They’re so chaotic and too much all at once that it actually kind of works—fits incredibly well, actually perfectly, for Phil. 

They had shared for a few table sittings when Dan first joined—under the guise that Dan wasn’t sure if he was committing to the game yet, but even back then he knew—before Dan bought his own set of plain black ones. He never really thought about upgrading, or getting something custom, despite his love of the game now. Perhaps he didn’t think he was worth it, or he wasn’t as experienced as the other players, thought it would be too try-hard to be anything other than basic. But now that they’re in his palm, rolling around and clacking together as he slowly shifts his hand back and forth, he feels like they belong there. 

Like he belongs here. 

“No, no,” Dan shakes his head, voice cracking a little as he speaks. “I like them.” He looks down at the dice in his hand. “I love these. Thank you, it means-” He cuts himself off, swallowing hard and trying to will away the tightness at his throat before meeting Phil’s eye again—so he doesn’t start fucking crying like a baby. 

“Of course,” Phil says in the quiet between them, getting exactly what Dan is saying without the assistance of words. “I’m so glad you like them. I was quite worried actually, the seller didn’t do Christmas guarantees and the tracking number wasn’t working so when they didn’t arrive before yesterday I was so upset I’d have to give them to you _after_ Christmas. But then they showed up this afternoon! That’s why I didn’t wrap them properly, sorry about that, but honestly you’ve seen my wrapping, you’re not missing much-” 

“I love your wrapping,” Dan says softly, only the slightest bite of sarcasm. Seeing Phil’s secret Santa present to John, he’d honestly like to think Phil tried his very best, but there’s only so much benefit of the doubt when it comes to a perfectly square box getting wrapped in paper that looked like it went through a paper shredder—multiple times. 

“The first shouty woman I told you about was actually shouty because of them, actually,” Phil continues to babble, light in his seat as he starts up a little bounce, still playing with the dice in Dan’s hand with his index finger. “I had them all out on the counter when the rush died down to give them a proper look in the light and she _insisted_ I sell them to her for her son’s Christmas gift no matter how many times I told her they weren’t merchandise.” 

“Oh no,” Dan laughs. 

“Oh yeah,” Phil says, voice deep. He grimaces playfully. “I made the mistake of joking that I’d sell them to her for five hundred pounds-” 

“Oh my god.” 

“-and she said YES!” Phil pulls his hands away from Dan’s to cover his eyes, letting them slide down his face in horror. “ _She_ apparently did not think my joke was funny and started cussing me out. A Christmas Cuss Out!” Phil exclaims suddenly. “Remind me to give that one to Kelly later.” 

Dan snorts, shaking his head. “Of course.” 

“Anyway, moral of the story, if you ever have a Dan present on the counter at work, always ask for at _least_ eight hundred pounds,” Phil says through giggles that taper off into a breathy hiss as his tongue pokes out from between his teeth. 

Dan rolls his eyes, but he’s unable to wipe the wide grin on his face. “Oh so give Phil a few hundred pounds and I’m nothing, huh?” he jokes. 

Phil shakes his head adamantly, a soft frown taking over his face so quickly it nearly gives Dan whiplash. “You’re everything,” he says quietly. “To me,” he adds after a beat, so soft it barely could be considered a whisper. But Dan catches it, catches it like he catches the instant shift of pink over Phil’s pale skin. 

Dan’s brain is too busy short circuiting to pay any mind to his own—mouth dry, more than speechless as he stares across the table at Phil, fidgeting around in his seat, far less bubbly than before. 

Dan doesn’t know what to do, what to say. _Everything._ He wants to do and say everything, but all he can get his brain and the rest of his body to agree on is picking out the D20 from his new set and gently rolling it across the table. It follows the line of Phil’s outstretched arm and rolls to a stop just before the edge of the table, Phil finally stilling as he looks down at it. 

A smile cracks on his face, and he looks back up to Dan—eyes sparkling like his own set of dice. 

“Okay, maybe if we start talking in the thousands I’ll reconsider,” Phil says with a wicked smirk. 

“Hey!” Dan closes his fist and leans over the table to playfully smack him on the shoulder, the chip shop once again filled to the brim with their laughter. 

Dan glances down at the die sat untouched in front of Phil before scooping it up, knowing the question would eat him alive if he didn’t. 

There’s so much about chances and odds playing a game like Dungeons and Dragons, where you leave your fate up to the dice. So it really isn’t anything, just statistics, probability. Perhaps someone else would say it’s lucky, to roll a natural twenty on your very first roll of a new set of dice. Perhaps others would say only a rigged set of dice would yield such a high initial roll. 

Dan doesn’t know where he lies in this particular discourse. The only thing he does know, for sure, with every fiber of his being: Phil is so, _so_ worth it.


	11. Chapter 11

Avoidance is kind of the name of Dan’s game. Putting things off, ignoring them all together—it’s nothing new to him, really. If there’s something he doesn’t want to deal with, there’s a very good chance he’s doing his absolute best to stay the furthest he can from it for as long as possible. A bad habit barely disguised in a false veil of safety. 

Though he can say, semi-confidently, that it isn’t like he’s _avoided_ venturing into The Gay Village. He just… he’s never had a reason to go. And why would he go without a reason? There’s been plenty of Manchester to explore in his past year here, and he’s convinced himself he hasn’t been missing out, that it’s not all that important. 

He’s proven wrong the second he sees the lights, trailing behind Phil with slow steps, letting him lead the way.

It’s barely late in the evening—despite their _slight_ lateness—and the street is already bustling with people and joy. Groups flowing in and out of the establishments that line the street. Couples looking up at the lights with the same creeping pace as Dan’s, arms slung around waists and shoulders, gloved fingers slotted together. No less than five different upbeat, poppy Christmas songs all playing at the same time—something that should sound more hellish than it does. 

Dan is honestly starting to think he’s been celebrating the holidays so very wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t actually dread this time of year if this, and last night, were what it was all about instead of… awkwardness and digging up long-term family drama. 

But he digresses… 

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped in his tracks, captivated by the way the bright lights all strung up the trees and the fronts of every shop and club reflect in the still water, until a warm gloved hand tugs at his. Dan spooks, but melts as he turns his head to see Phil right in front of him—apparently having skipped away to the mulled wine cart a few steps ahead while Dan was locked in a festive trance. He’s holding two paper mugs stacked in one hand, a great feat that they aren’t wobbling at all as he lets go of Dan’s hand to take the one on top and offer it to him. 

Dan takes it gladly, inhaling the warmed spice that just barely leaks out of the small hole in the lid before testing the waters and taking a sip. Phil does the same, watches Dan intently as they both tip their cups. Dan wonders if he’s feeling the same, if he’s starting to get light headed on the way the twinkling lights sit in his eyes like the water in the canal. It’s a ridiculous thought to ponder, there’s no way any part of him could have as much of an effect on Phil that all of Phil has on him. 

It’s the perfect temperature, not burning his tongue as he takes a bigger sip, the two of them humming in contentment with one last glance before starting to walk again. 

This time, Phil matches Dan’s pace, knocking their shoulders together and occasionally just barely brushing his pinky finger against the side of Dan’s hand. Dan reminds himself there’s absolutely nothing cosmic about it as his heart rate spikes at every touch. It’s merely coincidence, a high probability, that they have opposite dominant hands, that they always fall into step in a way that leaves their free hands, well, _free._

The reminder doesn’t help when they both veer to the side to let a laughing couple pass by, their hands clasped together and swinging between them in a way that shouts they’re not about to part to let anyone through. It’s a harsh squeeze in his chest, a lingering gaze as Dan turns his head to watch them continue on in the other direction, a bitten lip and a wordless _thank you_ that Phil says nothing when he catches himself and looks away. Phil holds his eye for a fraction of a second, and Dan doesn’t need a mirror to know what look is on his own face. He sees it perfectly reflected in Phil’s. 

The moment is gone as quickly as it came, Phil going off about the fated year he was over-served and managed to get the world’s sluttiest Santa on a club’s bar top with him, retelling the story in snippets told to him by others, as he has no recollection of the memory himself.

They laugh and laugh, sipping their wine until they’re threatened with hiccups and their cups are drained. And when Dan feels Phil’s pinky brush against his, pulled together again as their bones become loose and warm, he acts impulsively and grabs it. Just their pinkies linked together, swinging slightly as they walk—unassuming and _safe._

Dan isn’t sure if it’s the warmth against his hand or the instant lopsided grin he sees on Phil’s face out of the corner of his eye that releases some of the tight pressure in his chest, but he reckons it doesn’t matter either way. 

He reckons it’s all of it really. Himself and Phil, this city, the season. Life, in a way, feeling a little bit easier to navigate—if only for the night. 

Dan will take that. He’ll take that gladly, selfishly, even if it’s in doses as small as the littlest finger on his hand. 

“You lot!” Dan would probably jump right out of his skin if the reprimanding tone wasn’t so familiar. He and Phil turn at the same time, their fingers slipping away as they do. 

“I should’ve ignored the spending limit and gotten you a watch for Christmas,” Charlotte tsks as she and Kelly approach them, arms slung around each other with wide smiles. They’re the perfect picture of all the couples around them, looking every bit of belonging. 

“I wasn’t late!” Dan protests, crossing his arms in defiance—and also maybe so he isn’t tempted to reach back out. 

“Sure you weren’t.” Kelly makes a show of rolling her eyes. 

“He wasn’t!” Phil lifts his hands, waves them around—for whatever reason. To be cute, Dan guesses. “He was on time for once. We were together.” 

“Oh?” Charlotte and Kelly say in unison, honestly a bit creepy how they both even manage to bounce their eyebrows at the same time.

“Jesus,” Phil shakes his head, “we just stopped for dinner.” 

“ _Oh?”_ It’s just Charlotte this time, but the tone is all the same—teasing, knowing. Kelly giggles behind her hand beside her. 

“I am going to-” Phil threatens with a badly hidden smile as he lunges towards Charlotte. She, of course, has reflexes like a cat and bolts away, leaving Kelly and Dan unable to do anything but watch as Phil chases her down Canal Street. 

They share a brief look—of knowing and fond exasperation—and shake their heads at their people being ridiculous and stupid, making up their own fun ahead of them.

They take their time catching up, letting the people they feel so fondly for run circles around each other. Charlotte manages to get Phil by the hem of his coat, the two of them play wrestling on their feet by a big, lit up tree. 

“Kids!” Kelly scolds with a laugh. Phil and Charlotte pausing mid-tussle, eyes like spooked deer as their chests heave. “Can we _please_ go be merry and gay now?” 

There’s a truce in Charlotte leaning in towards Phil’s ear, in words they can’t hear and a brief interlocking of pinkies. They step away from each other and Phil goes right to Kelly’s side, slinging his arm around her shoulder. 

“I have got the _best_ bad Christmas movie title for you,” he says to her as they turn away, leading the way for Charlotte and Dan to follow. 

The club is toasty warm, all four of them pausing by the door to shuck off their coats. Gloves and scarves are balled up and shoved into coat pockets, coats are draped over arms, and something of a conga line is formed in the narrow hallway as they weave their way further into the building. Where Charlotte settles her hands on Kelly’s shoulders, holding on so they don’t get separated, Dan leashes himself to the bright white belt looped around Phil’s dark jeans. He feels, doesn’t hear, Phil’s little giggle against his chest when he latches on, tugging himself closer against his back. It’s as warm as the heated air around them—warmer, actually. 

The music gets louder as they single file their way down, until all that fills Dan’s ears is Elton John’s _Step Into Christmas._ When the hall opens up to the actual bar, it’s really all he _sees_ as well. 

The room seems proper packed, all sorts of people dancing and leaning and floating about, but there’s somehow a fresh breath of air as they fan out the slightest bit, the open space only feeling a fraction as cramped as the path to get in. Dan still keeps a finger tucked under Phil’s belt. It’d be a shame to get lost. 

He looks around wide eyed as his hold on Phil carries his feet forward. Seasonally appropriate flashing lights and tacky garden Christmas decor cover every surface that isn’t being danced on. Dan feels both over and underdressed, looking at an interesting combination of horrifically ugly Christmas sweaters, full blown Santa costumes, and— _well—_ a few Santa-esque outfits that would probably win the award for managing to be the _most_ Santa with the _least_ amount of fabric.

He’s tugged along far too quickly for his liking, tripping over his feet as a Santa with a particularly… _festive_ package passes by them. 

There’s a better view of the slightly raised platform stage as they wind their way in further—Kelly clearly having locked onto some destination as she guides them through. On it, a drag queen in a forest green velvet jumpsuit animatedly does her best Elton. Her dangerously tall wig is all strung up in multicolor lights, looking every bit the personification of a Christmas tree as she pounds her spread fingers down on the back of some guy that’s bent over in front of her—acting as a goddamn piano, Dan presumes. 

It’s fucking… excellent. Absolutely insane in all the best ways. 

Dan only snaps his head back when he—somehow—manages to hear Kelly yell something over her shoulder. He’s tugged a little faster as Phil picks up his pace, following after the girls. 

“Oh my god,” Charlotte’s loud voice carries over. “Score!” she shouts. Dan follows her line of sight as she points ahead of them to one of the large booths up against the far wall by the stage. The big group occupying it are all getting up at once, relinquishing their claim as they check for any forgotten items and move on—most likely doing a crawl of the bars up the street if they're already leaving this early. 

Dan can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that, can’t imagine how any other club could somehow be better than _this._

Kelly skips ahead, shaking off Charlotte’s hands. She expertly weaves through people without causing a single spilled drink or shoved shoulder, tossing her coat at the booth before basically diving to slide into it—securing them a spot for the night. She has a proper pleased smile on her face when Dan and Phil slide in, high fives all around and a peck on the lips from Charlotte before she turns towards the bar with the word, “Shots,” in her mouth. 

It’s warm with all of the hot bodies in the room, but not suffocatingly so without his coat on, Dan barely feeling the need to push the sleeves of his cardigan up to his elbows like Phil has with his button up. He guesses that’ll probably change once he’s had a few in him, he tends to run warm and alcohol only ever brings that out, but he’s shockingly comfortable for now. 

Comfortable in a place he’d never expect, Dan notes as he scans the bar.

Funny how often that seems to be happening. But Dan doesn’t want to dissect that, doesn't want to start spiraling—or whatever. He just wants to enjoy himself, let himself enjoy something without making it a whole _thing_ like he so often does. 

So he does. He lets go and allows himself that bit of freedom as he turns back in towards the booth, tells himself he’s allowed this—if only for this night. He tunes back into the conversation being had in loud voices around the table, tries to ignore any imposter-like feelings, any thoughts that make him feel like he doesn’t belong. 

Because he does—the three people around him remind him of that with a sloppy shot glass cheers. The glass clinks and they giggle as vodka sloshes over the rims and onto their fingers, not a care in the world as they all tip their heads back and slam them back down on the table like it’s a race. Like the competitive shits they all are. 

“Is that-” Dan sticks his wet finger in his mouth without a second thought, wincing a little as he gives the vodka a second taste. “Peppermint?” he asks, lifting a brow. 

“Spot on,” Charlotte says. 

“Like candy canes that… burn,” Phil says, wiggling his shoulders and bumping into Dan’s side.

“It’s tradition!” Kelly adds. 

Who is Dan to judge tradition? 

In the spirit of the season—and with that frustratingly catchy Britney Spears Christmas song in his ears—Dan buys them another round.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these next chapters sponsored by: sierra fucking misses holiday drag shows :(((((   
> also this chapter is a love letter to all the kellys in my life, i lay my life down for the one's of the group that shamelessly prioritize a nice place to sit while at clubs/shows they are simply the backbone of society and should be praised as such


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw emetophobia/vomiting for this one! if you want to avoid but still read a good chunk of this just skip entirely over the section that starts with "the cab"

That round turns into another, and then another. Dan starts to lose count when they switch from shots to whatever festive drinks Phil excitedly brings back from the bar. He’s given a choice between something radioactive green with a disturbing amount of cherries floating at the top and something simple and fizzy in a martini glass, its shade of red far more… natural, and the only thing floating in it is a simple sprig of mint. 

Phil beams when Dan pulls the martini glass towards him, saying something about how the festive toxic waste was the one he secretly wanted. Dan’s head is clouded, mouth pepperminty, but he thinks it’s some sort of tart vodka soda when he takes a tentative sip. It’s dangerously delicious, Dan starting to rack up more and more empty glasses. 

He must be properly drunk when he leans into Phil’s space and chases after the straw in his drink, catching it and taking a sip of the absolute sugar bomb. It’s strong, rum heavy, and Dan can’t believe he even manages to pick that out with the amount of sugar in it—never mind actually think it’s good. 

Maybe it’s less about the drink. Maybe he just likes the idea of knowing what Phil would taste like with that slightly greeny-blue tinted mouth of his. 

“Why does everyone want to like, fuck Santa?” Kelly asks from around her own straw. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Listen to this.” Kelly waves her hand in the air. _Santa Baby_ is loud in their ears, and in Dan’s line of sight a drag queen dressed in a short red Santa dress lip syncs along, bending over so often it makes Dan a little dizzy to watch. “This is, like, the sluttiest song I’ve ever heard. She is just, laying it down for Santa.” 

“Santa’s kinda fit,” Phil says, very clearly looking at Mr. festive package walking past their table. 

“Santa is not-” Dan starts, but stops the second he follows Phil’s line of sight. He slinks back against the booth, sliding down and leaning into Phil’s side. “Alright, Santa’s well fit,” he concedes, reaching out for his half empty drink. 

“You lot need to get out more,” Charlotte says. 

“I think we need another round,” Phil quips. 

“I won’t say no to that.” 

Kelly and Phil instantly have their fingers on their noses—or, well, in the case of Phil, he mostly misses and pokes at his cheek instead—and Dan and Charlotte share a fond eye roll. He gets up easily though, on loose limbs and overconfident feet, holding out an arm for Charlotte to loop hers around. 

They weave through the crowd easily—probably on account of Dan’s height—and wiggle their way into an open spot at the bar. Charlotte leans over it while Dan hovers behind her, attempting to get one of the bartenders’ attention. It takes a few seconds, maybe even a few minutes if Dan could be trusted with the concept of time in this state, for Charlotte to turn back around, giving Dan a far more annoyed eye roll. 

She tugs at the sleeve of his cardigan, manhandles his liquid state a bit as she swaps their places, pushing up on her toes to say, “I’m not gonna do it for ‘em,” in his ear. 

Dan’s about to turn back around to her to ask what she means, confusion tugging at his brows, but he’s stopped by the guy on the other side of the bar leaning into his space. He flashes Dan a bright, just over the line of customer service, smile that’s all lit up in the blinking lights of his tacky tee shirt. 

Admittedly, as much as he’d like to _not_ admit it, Dan’s suddenly far less confused by Charlotte’s actions. He leans in as well, calls out their drink orders and probably turns a nice shade of red once he realizes he just basically told their order to the dude’s left bicep instead of his face. 

Dan turns around with an exhale, his shoulders drooping with it as he glances down to meet Charlotte’s eye. She smiles, wide, gives him a soft punch in the arm for good measure. 

There’s something said between them in glances, with a few bounced brows and rolled eyes instead of words. They don’t need to say words, they really don’t, but Dan- Well. Dan suddenly finds himself bursting at the seams. 

“I’m _so_ gay,” Dan says slowly, loudly, leaning in with a big hand on Charlotte’s shoulder.

He says it like it’s a Revelation. Not that he’s just realized, no, no that’s not it, but like it’s something fucking _divine._ An ontological truth. _His_ truth—spoken like it’s something deserved of worship. 

Charlotte smiles like it is, the corner of her lip just barely twitching as she leans in to him. 

He’s definitely too intoxicated to realize it’s the first time he’s ever said it aloud. 

“Good for you, bud.” Charlotte squeezes her hand tight around his bicep, lets go to reach around him and grab two of the four drinks that were just brought over. “You gonna go bring these over and dance with Phil, then?” she asks, lifting the drinks and her brows. 

Dan’s eyes go wide, glassy as they focus and unfocus, the suggestion slowly clicking into his brain. He looks to Charlotte and nods once, determined as he takes the drinks from her. One of them sloshes against the side of his hand as he steps away from the bar, spinning on his heel to keep her eye as he backs away. 

“I’m gonna go dance with Phil,” he shouts as he does—absolutely nothing stopping him. 

Phil’s crimes against toes apparently aren’t as bad with blurred edges, Dan letting him trod and shimmy all over his feet as they make complete fools of themselves. It doesn’t matter though, doesn’t matter that they’ve got four left feet and the grace of two hyperactive giraffes, because the rest of the dance floor is in equal states of carefree ridiculousness and no one seems to care. 

There’s cheers as final performances leak into pushing unsuspecting friends into festive karaoke, everyone in the club feeling closer to being a unit, in on it, rather than the hodgepodge of strangers they actually are. 

Phil has his hands clasped loose around Dan’s, waving them around in the air completely off beat as a trio on stage belts out Mariah. He spins him with far too much confidence on a particularly screechy _‘baby!’_ and Dan very nearly slides right out of his hold and onto the floor. At the last second, Phil catches him, pulls him to his chest and probably bursts his right eardrum as he scream-sings along. 

It’s not even hard to bully the girls into going up for their—incredibly well-rehearsed—rendition of _Little Saint Nick_. They make a whole performance out of it, exaggerated accents and Charlotte using her _whole body_ to pantomime some sort of cross between a reindeer and a surfer. And the entire club absolutely eats it up. 

So much so that when the song comes far too quickly to a close and they _both_ beckon Dan and Phil onto the stage to go, the whole room erupts in cheers and chants—an absolutely unavoidable display of peer pressure. 

In his inebriated state, something tells him saying no, disappointing everyone by not even giving it a chance, and retreating to their booth would be far more humiliating than whatever embarrassing thing he could do up there. So he does something so very unlike him, turning to Phil to catch his eye and giving him a meek shrug when he does. 

And before he knows it, they’re being corralled up to the stage. 

“What do we even do?” Dan looks to Phil with wide eyes as they’re handed microphones. Phil opens his mouth, nothing actually coming out as he gives him a glassy stare in response. 

“I got you, honey,” the queen running the machine off to the side of the stage cuts in, pushing up her glasses with a long, cherry red nail while she leans forward to pick something on the screen. 

It flashes up on the blue screen in front of them, little animates snowflakes falling over the title as the first few notes of _Baby It’s Cold Outside_ start to play loudly through the bar. 

“You know this one?” Phil whispers nervously to Dan, bumping their shoulders together. 

“If I say no will it get me out of this?” 

“Probably not.” 

“I better not see Charlotte with her fucking phone out.” 

Phil laughs. “You go first, or I go first?” 

There’s really no time for a rock paper scissors battle right now, the first line inching its way up the screen. And Dan is apparently too drunk to dampen his inner theatre kid, so he answers Phil’s question by lifting his mic and tentatively singing the first line. 

“Baby it’s cold outside.” Phil is out of tune, but he doesn’t miss a beat.

“I’ve got to go away,” Dan sings louder, starting to get into the call and response. He looks away from the screen as he sings, realizing even when he’s drunk most overplayed Christmas songs have burrowed their way into his head like worms. He’s surprised to see Phil turned as well, looking directly at him with a loose, lopsided smile as he sings. 

Phil reaches out, wrapping a hand around both of Dan's cupping around his mic. “I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice.” 

Dan giggles his way through the next few lines, a fire roaring under his cheeks. 

“Baby it’s cold outside,” they sing in unison, knocking their shoulders and heads together like the most uncoordinated boyband—having a blast but probably sounding like feral fucking cats to anyone listening. The rest of the room is invested though, somehow, animatedly singing along and twirling their partners around in the small space between the stage and the bar. 

“This song is kind of fucked, yeah?” Dan says into his mic during the instrumental break, a slight buzz under his skin at all the eyes on him. 

“Aren’t they all, sweetheart?” someone shouts back. 

“It’s sexual liberation baby!” another calls, setting off a whole slew of wolf whistles and cheers. 

Dan looks back to Phil’s pink face, drunkenly attempting to commit the way his tongue sticks out through his teeth in joy to memory. 

He laughs all the way through the start of the second verse. 

“The welcome has been so nice and warm,” Dan sings through his smile. 

Phil drapes his arm around Dan’s shoulder, pulling him in close. “Look out the window at that storm.” 

Dan shakes his head. “My sister will be suspicious.” 

Phil leans in, eyes flicking down, “Gosh your lips look delicious,” then draws back. 

“My brother will be there at the door,” Dan croaks through. He feels like the air swirling around the stage is a million degrees, and Phil’s refusal to drop his gaze from his lips is doing nothing to help that. 

The scorching irony is not lost as Phil belts, “Never such a blizzard before.” 

“You’ve really been grand.” Dan places his hand on Phil’s shoulder. 

Phil puts his hand over Dan’s, squeezing around it. “I thrill when I touch your hand.” 

“But don’t you see-” Dan catches Phil’s eye. 

“How can you do this thing to me?” 

“There’s bound to be talk tomorrow.” 

Phil slaps a hand to his chest. “Think of my lifelong sorrow-”

Dan does an over-exaggerated wink. “At least there will be plenty implied.” 

“-If you got pneumonia and died,” Phil breaks as he sings, devolves into hysterical laughter that’s infectious to the entire room. 

“I really can’t stay,” Dan sings through laughter, leaning into Phil’s shoulder. 

Phil leans back, both of them belting a final ear-splitting, “Baby it’s cooooooold outsiiiiiide,” before completely losing it with laughter—the two of them having to hold the each other up as the room erupts in claps and cheers and wolf whistles. 

They’re offered a free drink, requested an encore. They only take one of those things, swallowing peppermint that burns instead of their little remaining pride. 

Though Dan actually feels like he’s got quite a lot of it, maybe more than before. 

By the end of the night everything is hazy, all blurred around the edges, but Dan feels so very warm. Warm in the club, warm in his parka after he tries a total of eight times to get his left arm into its sleeve, warm in his heart.

It’s just the alcohol, the hot bodies, the- _fuck it,_ he really can’t find the energy to care. 

Dan struggles to keep his eyes from unfocusing as they file out of the club, laughing loudly as Kelly says something that’s probably far less ridiculous than his cackle is making it seem. He’s all tucked up into Phil’s side, barely squeaking through the narrow hallway while they somehow manage to turn four drunken legs into two, slightly usable ones. Which is honestly a stretch with the way they wobble and stumble on nothing but air and the level floor below their feet. 

Somehow, somewhere along the way, Dan ended up with Phil’s reindeer antlers on his head. Phil humming, “ _I’ve decided the top half is definitely the cuter half,_ ” in his ear as he placed them—whatever that means. Dan’s too far gone to put any thought into it. 

They’re as tilted as he is, barely hanging onto his head when they’re blasted with the evening winter wind. They all let out little gasps and shrieks at their unhelpful layers—scarves and coats haphazardly thrown on, all disheveled and unzipped. Dan didn’t even bother with his gloves, the hand not curled around Phil’s waist from under his coat is shoved into his own pocket, clutching around the soft bag of dice and what feels like only one knitted glove. He simply grips his hand around his glove—in turn his brain telling his other hand to squeeze harder at Phil’s warm side—unable to fathom the rocket science it would take to actually get it _on_ his hand. 

They bid Kelly and Charlotte a very loud, very obnoxious adieu, and Dan watches their blurred forms set off down the street, braving the walk to their apartment, apparently living close enough to manage in this state. Dan definitely doesn’t have that kind of confidence. 

He pulls his hand out of his pocket to pull out his phone from his jeans. A string of expletives leave his mouth, the air in front of them dotted in little puffs of foggy _fuck, fuck, shit_ ’s as he presses the home and lock button multiple times to no avail. No matter what he does, how he insults the little rectangle gripped in his hand, the black screen remains. It’s dead. 

“Want me to call you a cab?” Phil asks, shimmying around to get his phone out, nearly wobbling them both over. They don’t fall though, don’t let go of each other either. 

“Please,” Dan says softly, looking up at Phil from where he’s leaned into his side, jutting out his bottom lip and giving him those pleading, glassy eyes. Phil is nothing more than a blur to him from this angle, the twinkling lights around them throwing off what little perception he has entirely. A beautiful, beautiful blur. “Don’t think legs wanna move,” he adds, the words feeling heavy and wrong on his tongue. 

“We can just share,” Phil says slowly, like someone’s put him in half speed. Dan briefly wonders if he has, horrified that he’s got some sort of universal Phil remote in his pocket and he’s accidentally been interfering with Phil’s life like he’s some sort of Sim. The idea stresses him out, so he hides from it in the warmth of Phil’s side, pressing his face into his shoulder. “Make sure you get home safe.”

“Thank yoooooou Phiw,” Dan mumbles into his shoulder, the end of Phil’s name trailing off into a soft whine of a W as he slurs it. 

“Anything for you,” Phil says softly, slowly tapping out the number into his phone like he’s having to solve a mathematical equation to do so. “Always.” 

Dan hums, just watching the numbers swirl around Phil’s phone screen. 

“Plus you’re warm, and it’s cold outside.” Phil pulls Dan in closer, wrapping the arm that’s been trapped between their warmth around his shoulder as he holds his phone to his ear. 

“Baaaaby it’s coooold-” Dan starts to sing, voice already scratchy and hopelessly out of tune. He continues on even as Phil hastily shushes him, trying to not to let his giggles through the other line. 

The cab ride was a mistake.

Dan must be pale, or Phil’s just a really fucking good person, because he slides out first and opens Dan’s door, offering to see him to the door. The second Dan’s out though, he feels like a bottle of Coke someone’s just shook violently—maybe even dropped in a whole handful of mentos while they were at it. 

“Phil,” Dan warns, voice low. “Please-” He clasps a hand around his mouth, desperately willing it away. 

“Please what?” Phil asks, sounding frantic as he lightly puts a hand on Dan’s shoulder. His eyes are wide as he tries to appraise him in the low street lights. “Are you okay?” 

“Just-” _Oh no._ “-go.” His words are staccato, muffled around his hand. If he was pale before, he’s sure as hell _green_ by now. “Peppermint’s revenge,” he manages to get out before stumbling, at least, towards the big planter outside his building. 

As Dan empties the contents of his stomach into the crispy remains of the sad, frostbitten plant, he wonders if vomit is a good fertilizer. 

Probably not, to be honest, if the burn in his throat is anything to go by. 

“Oh noo,” he hears Phil’s soft voice through the ringing in his ears. He feels a hand at the small of his back and he tries to protest, but nothing comes out except for, _well_ , more peppermint vodka and chips. 

Phil rubs gentle circles into Dan’s back while he stays doubled over, leaning his head against the cool brick of his building with his eyes closed, just for good measure. 

He really, _really_ doesn’t want to experience an act two whilst trying to make it up his stairs. 

“You should’ve gone,” Dan says weakly. 

“Don’t be daft.” Phil sounds kind of funny, and Dan looks up to see the hand that isn’t rubbing at his back is pinching his nose—clearly trying to not vomit himself. 

“Oh my god.” Dan straightens up as much as he can, stepping away from the desecrated plant on unsure feet. “This is horrible. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” 

“Shh.” Phil follows him as he moves, never stopping his comforting touches, not letting Dan shrug away from them. His fingers barely brush against Dan’s skin as he pushes his hair off his forehead. The instant cool air on it feels heavenly. 

“You still feel like shit?” Phil asks. 

Dan shakes his head, regrets it immediately when it gives him the spins. He breathes in sharp, closing his eyes for a second to regain his balance. 

“No, no I- I feel so much better actually. I just-” Dan sighs. “This is horrifying. I am so sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Phil says in a gentle voice, shushing him again like he’s trying to calm a spooked horse. He glances towards the doors to their left. “Can I help you up?” 

Dan shuts his eyes again, stopping the world from spinning as he takes a deep breath in and out of his nose. “Please,” he says, quiet, patting at his pocket to hand Phil his keys. 

Dan honestly has no fucking clue how they make it up the stairs. Despite the horrible taste in his mouth, he actually feels lighter—less heavy and more floaty—his chest only heaving the slightest bit when they get to his floor and he directs Phil towards his door. 

“Shhhhhhh,” Dan hushes Phil’s giggles beside him as Phil fiddles with his keys. He doesn’t know why he’s laughing, why they’re laughing, but they are. “Gotta be quiet,” Dan whispers. “Flaaaaaaaaatmate.” 

“Oh!” Phil says in a hushed giggle. “Okay,” he whispers, then lets go of Dan’s keys all together, letting them clatter to the floor so he can mime zipping his mouth shut and tossing away the key. 

For legal reasons, Dan will not disclose the amount of floor crawling done to retrieve said keys. He just won’t. 

“All set?” Phil asks quietly once he’s pushed open Dan’s door, handing him his keys. “Or do you need me to tuck you in?” 

_I need you to-_ Dan blinks, stopping whatever _that_ train of thought was. Absolutely no service to this station today. He steps over the threshold, tossing his keys on the shoe rack by the door. 

He turns back to Phil, still swaying slightly by the doorframe. “Do you want to just stay instead of waiting for another cab?” 

“Yeah?” Phil tilts his head to the side, the red of his cheeks bright in the stark hall light behind him. 

Dan nods, entirely sure of himself. “Yeah.” 

They’re both a complete mess looking into the bathroom mirror—like proper horror movie levels of disheveled. Dan’s kind of tempted to turn the light back off, bump around in the bathroom in the dark just so he doesn’t have to look at his bright red cheeks and slightly sweaty temples—his hair just barely starting to curl there. He doesn’t though, knowing that would definitely end in a disaster or two. 

Dan wastes no time rinsing out his mouth and sticking his toothbrush in it, watching Phil as he leans forwards towards the mirror, staring at his reflection all wide eyed like an animal who’s never experienced a mirror before. 

“I think I have eye drops somewhere,” Dan says, noting how red and bloodshot Phil’s eyes have gotten. “One of us probably does.” He goes to open the mirror with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, his arm apparently spooking Phil, causing him to jump backwards.

Dan looks at him with an amused smile as Phil blinks once, twice, and then shakes his head. 

“Oh! No.” Phil blinks again. “Contacts,” he points to his eye—as if they’d be somewhere else on his body, “gonna die tomorrow, but that’s okay.” 

“Uhhh.” Dan scrunches his brows together. “I think Adam has the goop.” 

“The goop?” 

“The, um,” Dan hums as he actually opens the mirror and scans the slightly blurry medicine cabinet. “The lube stuff. He has shitty eyes.” 

“Lube stuff for shitty eyes,” Phil repeats in a whisper. “Oh!” He says suddenly. “The contact juice?” 

“Yeah, contact juice,” Dan nods, like that makes perfect sense. He grabs the big white bottle on the bottom shelf that he thinks is right and hands it to Phil. “Yeah?” 

Phil does something ridiculous with his eyes, squinting and widening them a few times as he holds the bottle at various distances from his face. He does a little shrug with a soft hum, apparently deeming it okay. 

“Do you have, like, a thing?” Phil asks. 

“Uhhhhh thing,” Dan hums, honestly unsure how they both even managed to get themselves this far. His brain feels like it’s running on _toothpaste minty_ and _Phil pretty_ with absolutely nothing else bouncing around in there. 

Phil hums, then decides against words, miming whatever he’s trying to say with his hands. The gestures go from confusing, to downright _distracting_ and a little bit… _rude._

Do most people require… _blowjobs_ when they’re removing their contacts? 

“Cup! A cup!” Phil says suddenly, almost as quickly slamming his hands against his mouth, remembering his volume. 

Dan just laughs—far too loud, but it’s literally impossible to contain. He shakes his head as he smiles fondly at Phil. “Second cupboard from the fridge.” 

He really shouldn’t trust drunk Phil to prowl about his kitchen, but he’s in no sane state himself and he really, _really_ needs to brush his teeth about five more times, so he risks it. He doesn’t hear any major crashes or glass shattering as he scrubs at his teeth and pees, giving him the slightest peace of mind. 

Dan’s just turning off the tap when Phil returns with a precarious pyramid in his hands—an empty glass balanced atop two full ones. Dan inhales sharply, wiping his wet hands on his jeans before quickly taking the wobbling one on the top to set it down on the sink. He then relieves Phil of the two water glasses, wondering how in the hell this guy manages to remain alive with all his antics. 

“I’ll leave you to stick your fingers in your eyes.” Dan steps past Phil, turning to linger in the doorway. “I don’t have a spare but that’s mine if you want.” He nods to the tube of toothpaste he left out on the counter. 

Phil laughs lightly. “I went to uni, I know to always keep a toothbrush on me.” Dan lifts a brow, triggering Phil to waggle his right index finger in front of his face—becoming three or four fingers with the way it blurs. 

“Oh,” Dan giggles. “Right then, leave you to it.” 

On the softest feet he can manage—or, at least, thinks he manages—Dan steps across the hall to his room, setting the glasses down on his bedside table.

The room is washed in a dim, warm light as he clicks on his lamp so Phil can, hopefully, _see._ Dan’s not too sure. With all of the little Phil facts he’s collected over the past year, he didn’t even know he wore contacts. Though he’s not really the kind of guy to go around inspecting eyes for contacts. Maybe he’d quite like that, getting so close to the swirling colors in Phil’s eyes to be able to pick out the bit of plastic—or whatever it is contacts are made of—on his eyes. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen him in glasses either. 

That’s… definitely something he would remember. The image of Phil in various pairs of frames instantly pushes to the forefront of his mind, getting him a little hot under the collar of his tee shirt. Dan tries to shake the thought away, tugging off his cardigan and downing half of one of the waters in one—incredibly _thirsty_ —go. 

_God._ He’s romanticizing bad eyesight. He’s so far gone it isn’t even funny. 

With a soft sigh that he feels tight around his heart, Dan finishes the rest of his water and decides to pad down the hall to refill it. He notices a cupboard ajar as he waits for his glass to fill, another fond noise leaving his throat as he swings it shut before making his way back to his room. 

Dan strips his clothes, working up a sweat as he wiggles out of his tight jeans, honestly feeling far too hot despite the slight chill in the flat. He rolls into bed once he’s down to his pants, all his muscles melting the second his head hits his pillow. 

Phil does manage to make it back with a complete lack of clattering sounds or any mild disasters—at least, that Dan knows of—slowly stepping into Dan’s room with a hand at the door frame. Dan can see that he’s squinting slightly in the low light, and his usual fringe is all pushed up off his forehead, sticking up and all about in a way that really shouldn’t look as hot as it does. 

“I just wanted to say goodnight,” Phil says, voice low and deep. Dan squirms a little under the covers, only vaguely aware of how much of a mistake this probably is. 

“What are you doing, you absolute muffin,” Dan teases softly, making a point to shift over until he’s up against the wall. He pulls the corner of his duvet over, letting the chilled air in with a woosh. “Get in here.” 

“Oh,” Phil says, light, taking a tentative step forward. “I thought I’d take the sofa.” 

“Not unless you want to? The cushions are proper fucked, not good for long boys like us.” Dan pats at the space beside him. “Come on.” 

He settles back in, letting Phil make the choice. Phil pauses for a second, then fully steps into the room, blinking and looking around with that adorably squinty face of his. 

“If you want a shirt or whatever,” Dan yawns, gesturing to his dresser, “top drawer, second drawer maybe- I don’t know, I’m not awake right now you can just dig.” His words lull off into a mumble as he pulls his side of the duvet up to his chin, no longer fighting his eyes trying to blink shut. 

There’s stark silence in the room. Then, a soft sigh and quiet movement. There’s a dip in the bed, the click of his lamp, and Dan feels his entire body relax the moment he feels warm skin press against his shoulder. 

“Night Dan,” Phil’s voice is barely audible, but somehow _so_ loud bouncing around the walls of Dan’s head. He reckons he’s already asleep, drifted off to a dreamland where he’s allowed to lean into all of this, where he’s allowed to warm his cold toes against soft, pliant flesh. 

Dan merely hums, content, in response. 


	13. Chapter 13

Dan doesn’t remember the last time he felt this warm, humming content as he presses into it, feeling the heat from where his face is buried in softness all the way down to the tip of his toes. Fluttering between the realm of awake and asleep, Dan lets the warmth envelop him, drifting back off. 

The second time he starts to wake, with light threatening to permeate his eyelids, his warmth is snatched away. He tries to roll into it, chase it, wrap himself back up in the sheets that were keeping him toasty, but even in his _more asleep than awake_ state he can tell something is missing. He whines, low and broken in his throat at this realization, pouting with a grumble as he does a little stretch before curling back in on himself. 

He’s _just_ starting to drift again when he feels something tickle at his forehead. 

“Shh,” a voice whispers. “Go back to sleep.” 

Dan whines again, trying to push back up against the soft hand he felt on his skin, trying to place the distant voice in his ears. He wills himself to slip into the dream, the dream of warmth and contentment and safe feelings, but all it does is send a little jolt to his brain, whirring it to life and getting him closer to half-awake. 

He hears the distinct creak of that one floorboard by his desk, some shuffling, and the soft padding of feet. He stays quiet as he stirs, the softest hum leaving his throat as he does a sleepy roll of his shoulder and cracks an eye open. 

Whatever he was expecting, it definitely wasn’t to see a blurred figure standing in the middle of his room. Dan’s eye blinks shut, opens again to see more than a few shapes and colors. 

_Phil._

Of course it’s Phil, making his way across his room in bright purple pants as he—Dan blearily brings a hand up to rub at his eyes—pulls on Dan’s university hoodie that he had draped over his desk chair. 

Dan’s head starts to throb at the flashes of memories, putting the pieces of an impossible situation together until he has some semblance of a recollection—making it seem not all that impossible at all. He squeezes his eyes shut as the throb starts to properly pound in a poor attempt to stave it off. 

The soft click of his door opening may as well be a drill pressed directly against his temple. 

How the fuck did he drink so much? 

Dan starts to roll over, plans to bury his head in a pillow and groan melodramatically until someone comes to remove his brain from his skull, but he freezes up completely at another voice—another drill coming for the opposite side. 

“Dan, I was ju- _oh_. Not Dan. Hello!” He hears Callum laugh awkwardly, the sound far too loud in his ears. 

He hears the hum of Phil’s voice, but can’t quite make out his words—reckons he’s in a similar state, feels a flash of pity for him getting that greeting directly if it’s echoing so harshly in his own brain from all the way over here. Those thoughts stop entirely as he realizes Phil is talking to his flatmate.

For some reason—he can’t put together why—that distresses him. 

“-you just let Dan know-” 

“Mmm,” Dan hums loudly, making a whole show of stretching and rising up, wincing as he blinks his eyes open again to the soft morning light of the room. “I’m up,” he croaks—that’s genuine, his throat feels like actual sandpaper. “What’s up?” he asks, blinking rapidly in the direction of the door until Phil and Callum come into full view. 

“Pee,” Phil says unceremoniously, then bolts past Callum, leaving him alone in the doorway. 

Callum’s smiling, chuckles softly as he takes a step forward and leans against the frame. “Nice guy,” he says, sounding genuine but Dan can’t quite trust his groggy ears. 

Weird would be the word Dan would personally use, but he guesses nice isn’t wrong. Not enough to describe the vast expanse that is Phil, but not wrong. 

Dan hums in agreement, heart starting to race as his body wakes up. He swallows dry as he tries not to let his inward panic show on his tired face. He knows exactly how this looks. The walls around him suddenly feel like glass. 

“You’re not leaving soon, right?” Callum asks. 

Dan shakes his head. “Day after tomorrow.” 

Callum hums. “I’ve got a train in like,” he looks at his watch, “an hour and was just going to sort out my food that won’t last after New Year’s, but it seems like a waste to toss it if you’ll be here for a bit longer. It’s just like some sandwich stuff in the fridge, I think, might have a few eggs…” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan bobs his head. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“Sick, alright,” Callum says, pushing off the doorframe. He stops before he turns away, looking back at Dan sat up in his bed. He jerks his head towards the bathroom door across the hall. “I didn’t kn-” 

Dan immediately shakes his head, Callum’s thought vanishing from the air. 

“Oh,” Callum nods, a bit awkward, “right. I won’t-” He waves one of his hands in the air. “You’re good.” 

Dan nods, chest feeling tight as he chews at his bottom lip. “Thanks,” he replies in a soft croak—because he doesn't know what else to say. 

Callum hums, a soft smile overtaking his previous uncomfortable expression as he looks at Dan for a beat too long. “Well,” he pats softly at the door frame, starting to turn away, “I’m off once I find my laptop charger. Merry Christmas, Dan.” 

“You too. See you next year.” 

Callum taps at the door frame again before turning, disappearing from Dan’s line of sight. 

“Oh! Cal!” Dan calls, wincing a bit at his own volume. 

“Yeah?” he calls back. Two seconds later a head pokes back in his doorway. 

“Check under the sofa,” Dan instructs. “Think I saw it peeking out from under there the other day.” 

Callum’s face lights up. “You are a _godsend,_ Howell,” he says as he disappears down the hall, his voice tapering off as he goes. 

Dan shuts his eyes, bringing his hands to his temples to rub at them. _Ten, eleven, twelve-_

“Thank you!” Callum shouts from the lounge. 

Dan lets out a soft chuckle despite the proper rattling it gives his head. He reaches behind his back to haphazardly prop his pillows up against his headboard, sighing and letting his eyes shut again as he sinks back into the softness. He doesn’t have any plans to fall back asleep, there’s an insistent pressure in his bladder and a constant throb in his head, but he can barely fathom getting up now. Maybe, maybe when Phil returns from the bathroom he’ll drag himself up, but for now, he’ll give himself just a bit longer. 

He makes a little whiny sound as he blindly stretches a hand out to the side in an attempt to seek out one of the half-full water glasses left on his bedside table, huffing dramatically when he realizes he’d have to actually shuffle or stretch over completely to reach. 

A soft giggle bounces around his head, forcing his eyes to snap open just as he feels the side of a cool glass being pressed to his open palm. Dan shifts, clutching around it so it doesn’t drop. 

“You’re adorable,” Phil says quietly, sitting down on the edge of the bed and leaning over to grab the other glass. Dan just tries to not choke on the water he’s pouring down his throat. “Wait, wait,” Phil stops him, holding out his other hand, “here.” 

Dan pulls the cold glass away from his lips, stretching up a little to peer into his hand. A couple of white tablets sit in his palm. 

“Paracetamol,” Phil offers when Dan does nothing but stare. “From your cabinet. So if it’s poison, it’s _your_ poison, and I already took some so I’m as good as dead.” 

Dan snorts, winces with the pressure it causes. “No, no. I just-” 

He just… he doesn’t know, actually. He doesn’t know why such a simple gesture makes him want to fucking cry. It’s probably just the hangover. That’s it.

“Thanks,” he settles on. He scoops the tablets from Phil’s palm and pops them into his mouth, downing the remainder of his water in one go. 

“Hungry?” Phil asks, taking Dan’s empty glass from him and setting them both down on the nightstand as softly as he can possibly manage. Dan is grateful for it, but his stomach churns at the mere mention of food—suddenly hit with a flash of a memory of emptying his stomach in the presence of Phil. 

Dan groans, shrinking down in the bed as he covers his face with his hands, mortified. 

“Yeah, me either. Thought I’d ask tho. Think I’d have to leave the premises if any food smells started happening anytime soon.” 

Dan whines softly in the back of his throat at that, pouting slightly when he drops his hands. He doesn’t know why the idea of Phil leaving right now makes him so sad.

Phil just looks at him in question, cocking his head to the side and mimicking his pout with his big, pink bottom lip jutting out. 

Dan wants to just- 

He coughs, stopping any budding thoughts of pushing himself up and leaning into Phil’s space. “Do you have work today?” he asks. 

Phil gives him a weird look, squinting slightly, but then shakes his head. “It’s Sunday.” 

“Oh right,” Dan says, looking down at the duvet he has pulled up to his chest. “Are you up to anything?” he asks in a low voice, feeling his cheeks heat. 

“Just hanging out with some guy,” Phil answers. 

“Oh.” Dan can’t help the frown, glad he’s at least looking down. He’s putting far too much hope in his bedhead, thinking it’s at least hiding his disappointment. 

“Stupid,” Phil says softly with a nudge at Dan’s thigh. “You’re the guy.” Dan looks up at that, his lips parting in surprise. “Unless you like, have things to do. I can clear out,” Phil backtracks, scratching at the back of his neck. 

Dan lets a deep sigh out of his nose, rolling over on his side as it develops into a groan. 

“I don’t want you to go,” he grumbles into his pillow, voice muffled. “But I _really_ need to revise for my exam tomorrow morning. Meant to yesterday but I fucked off the second I _looked_ at my textbook.” 

He feels a squeeze at his hip, Phil giving him an encouraging… shake? 

“I could help, if you’d like,” he offers. 

“By distracting me?” Dan asks, still to his pillow. 

Phil gasps, pushing at Dan’s side. “I am _not_ a distraction!” 

Dan just snorts. Yes, he absolutely is. 

“I could though! Help you revise, if you want. I am actually good at it despite what you may think. You just didn’t know me in my whole… _professional student_ phase.” Phil squeezes at his hip again and Dan rolls over, looking up at those blue eyes. It seems impossible that they’re still just as vivid and bright after just waking up, mildly hungover. “Or we could lay around for a bit until food stops sounding like hell so I can make sure you get some breakfast in you before leaving you to it.” 

“Mmm,” Dan hums. The thought of food still makes him queasy, but he likes _most_ of that plan. “That sounds good, I can do that.” He starts to shift back over to the wall, sliding down and wiggling under the covers. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. But I don’t like the part where you leave,” he says as he tugs at the duvet, making Phil lift his bum so he can pull it open for him. Phil slides back into bed easily, the soft fabric of Dan’s own hoodie brushing up against his bare skin. 

“Promise you’ll hold me accountable?” Dan asks. 

“I am the best revision buddy,” Phil says, all confidence. “Like, number one of all time. People actually should be paying me for my services.” 

“ _Alright_ , let’s not go that far, bud.” Dan laughs. 

Phil wiggles a hand out from under the duvet to shove at Dan’s shoulder. He’s quick to hold it up though, closing his fist save for his pinky, waving it about between them. “I’ll make sure you get so much- What is it that you do?” 

“It’s philosophy.” 

Phil’s face lights up. “Perfect! I put the Phil-”

“Please don’t,” Dan groans, covering his face with the hand that he isn’t using to lock pinkies with Phil. 

“-in philosophy!”

Dan rolls over the second his finger is released, pressing his face into the pillow. “Ugggghhh, you’re the _worst._ ”

“You like it,” Phil says, all smug. Dan can _hear_ his smile. 

“Unfortunately.” He doesn’t think his voice has ever sounded fonder. 

The room falls back into a hush as they get cozy again, their breathing evening out as the painkillers start to kick in and they slowly start to drift again. That pleasant warmth returns, far more than just a measure of temperature as Dan lets it permeate down to his bones. 

He lasts all of five minutes before letting out a very annoyed, very loud, “ _Fuck.”_

“Mmm, what?” Phil grumbles, slightly slurred. 

“I really have to piss,” Dan says it like it’s the end of the world, suddenly flicking on Phil’s awake switch and sending him into a fit of very cruel giggles. 

“Horrible,” Dan mutters over and over through his entire—slightly painful—struggle to untangle himself from the bed, doesn’t stop as he half stomps, half waddles across the hall. 

And when he returns half a Dan lighter to a fast asleep Phil all curled up in _his_ side of the bed, he finds himself unable to feel anything but fond—maybe the slightest bit jealous that the dude can fall asleep that fast, but he digresses. 

Dan finds his phone attached to his charger on the nightstand, despite having no recollection of plugging it in, and sets an alarm for a few hours before climbing back in bed. He doesn’t really think twice as he curls up against Phil’s back, his whole body instantly melting back into unconsciousness. 

If anything, he can at least claim he was just trying to steal Phil’s sleep through, like, osmosis—or whatever. Definitely not just wanting a cuddle because his head hurts and he’s in love with Phil. Not at all. 

There’s a bit of an awkward, slightly giggly untangle when the chime of Dan’s phone shakes them awake. Almost something like reluctance, unwillingness, radiates from their warm skin. They share a short cough in the middle of the room, Dan clearing his throat and Phil offering to make breakfast all jumbled at once that they have to try a few more times of talking over each other, stuttering and giggling until they’re on the same page. 

Phil somehow manages to reanimate his eyes after falling back asleep in his contacts, leaving Dan to the bathroom while he skips off to the kitchen. Dan takes the quickest shower of his life, the ache in his head now just a very dull throb, the sleep in his bones entirely shaken off. It’s really nothing more than rinsing the night off his skin. He quickly blow dries his hair until he looks something of a shocked poodle, and clamps his straighteners over it with the soft hiss of the hot iron in his ear—steaming dry the bits he missed with the hair dryer. 

Dan emerges from the bathroom in fresh-ish clothes—he still _really_ needs to do laundry and decided it would be better to give Phil his last clean pair of joggers—and his socked feet pad softly down the hall to the kitchen.

By some miracle, the smell of toasting bread and scrambled eggs doesn’t turn his stomach. He actually lets his eyes shut to breathe it in, humming in tune with the growl in his stomach. 

Phil is looking every bit of every dream Dan has ever had, humming something that sounds suspiciously like _Jingle Bell Rock_ as he shimmies a pan and spatula around on the stove. He hasn’t taken off Dan’s bright red hoodie, but from the waist down he’s covered in black, all of Dan’s clothes right down to his toes. It’s actually funny how jarring it is to see Phil in two matching socks void of any color. It’s distinctly _not_ funny what the sight does to Dan’s chest—his dick as well, if he’s being honest. 

He shakes it away and steps into the room on heavier feet, making his presence known. Phil does a little jump over the egg pan, but turns to flash Dan a bright, toothy smile. Dan huffs a soft little laugh that _reeks_ of fond at the way only half of Phil’s fringe lays on his forehead, the rest beating to the tune of their own drums, sticking up wherever they please. 

Dan wants to reach out and tug on those goddamn hoodie strings, pull Phil to his chest and keep him there indefinitely—but he doesn’t.

He does step into his space though, peering into the pan and reaching out to flatten a particularly erect piece of Phil’s hair on the side of his head. 

“‘S done,” Phil hums. Dan convinces himself he’s just imagining the way Phil leans his head into his brief touch. “Sorry I didn’t make coffee, I could _not_ figure that out,” he adds, pointing an accusatory spatula at Adam’s Nespresso on the counter. 

Dan barks out a laugh and moves to pull out two mugs and coffee pods, making fun of Phil for being a coffee pleb the whole way. 

They have their breakfast at the sofa, over some trash reality show playing on the telly that neither of them pay much attention to. Phil does, actually, make Dan get up after half an hour, physically pushes him off the sofa to go retrieve his textbooks and notes. 

He gets a little bossy even, refuses to hear any of Dan’s grumbles of protest, prevents him from drifting off into the endless zone of procrastination. Dan would find it kind of hot if he wasn’t trying so hard to be focused. There’s something about Phil’s encouragement—the soft praise he gives him when he finishes a chapter without a break or gives a correct answer during Phil’s pop quizzing with little hesitation—that keeps him wanting more and more. As if, with Phil, revising is the most exciting game he’s ever played. 

Perhaps it’s less about the work, more about Phil. It always seems to come right back to that, doesn’t it? 

“Are you sure you don’t want this back right away, I can change back into-” 

“No,” Dan cuts him off, shaking his head. “You can give it back whenever, I don’t care,” he says, genuinely. “It’s probably for the best that I don’t go home with it anyway.” He shrugs, hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. “Easier to avoid any and all uni talk if I’m not the Manchester billboard.” 

They’re lingering by Dan’s door, the sun dipping low in the sky through the lounge windows, stealing the light from the hall. Phil has his shoes on, his coat pulled over Dan’s clothes, and a soft frown on his very soft looking lips. He sighs, the corner of his lip twitching upward just the slightest amount as he taps the toe of his shoe against Dan’s socked foot. 

“I hope you have a nice Christmas, Dan,” Phil says softly. 

“You too, Phil.” Dan flicks his gaze up to his eyes, one last burning memory of blues and greens and yellows. 

“Oh- _oof_ ,” the sound is ripped from Dan’s chest in a surprised chuckle, Phil lunging forward and pulling him into a tight hug.

It takes him a moment for his brain to catch up, but when it does he’s ripping his hands from his pockets and wrapping them tightly around Phil’s middle, seeking home in the crook of his neck just as Phil has in the dip of his shoulder. 

Dan can’t tell if one of them is humming, or if his heart is beating so out of control it’s trying to vibrate through his chest, but whatever it is, it’s nice. He breathes in deeply, head swimming with the way Phil smells like _Phil_ , but also him. And he’s embarrassingly glad Phil also doesn’t seem to be in any rush to let go. He wants to memorize this too, savor the feeling before it’s taken from him. 

“I won’t see you til after Christmas?” Phil voice permeates the thin material of his tee shirt and tickles at his skin. 

Dan hums low in his throat. It’s a sad sound. He’s a sad Dan. “After New Year's, actually.” 

“Oh.” Phil squeezes around his neck just a little tighter. Dan makes up for it, instantly sliding his big hands over Phil’s back until there’s absolutely no more give. 

Phil wobbles, so very slightly, and Dan chuckles as he finds a way to pull him that mere fraction of a centimeter closer. For some reason he’s delighted with the way Phil has to push the slightest bit up off his heel to hum something soft directly in his ear. 

“I’m going to miss you.” Phil’s lip brushes featherlight against his skin. 

It’s weird, the longing in his chest feeling so profound despite having Phil right here in his arms. It’s weird that the thought of not seeing Phil for over a week, almost two, makes the center of his chest feel cold. It’s like this one blip of a weekend has opened the floodgates, changing everything completely. 

Dan doesn’t know if he likes that or not. Sure as hell doesn’t know if this is something he’s prepared to deal with. 

“Me too,” Dan’s voice cracks, finally relaxing his grip and taking a step back when Phil also lets go. 

“See you in 2011,” Phil says with a weak laugh. 

“Oh that’s spooky,” Dan says, grimacing. 

“Yeah?” Phil cocks his head to the side. A perfectly soft smile passes over his pink cheeks and up to his shining eyes. “I have a feeling it’ll be a good year.” 

Dan snorts, breaking up the feeling in his chest. “Did you roll perception for that one?” he jokes.

“Don’t think I have to.” Phil’s tongue darts out to lick his lips, teeth trapping the bottom one as he holds Dan’s gaze. Dan feels like he could just melt into the floor—wonders what the logistics of getting one’s deposit back are if there’s residual Dan goop under the floorboards. 

“Alright,” Phil says, shaking them both out of whatever the fuck trance they were in. He reaches out and squeezes at Dan’s shoulder. “Get to bed early and don’t forget to go over the-” 

“Yeah, yeah right, okay Dad.” Dan rolls his eyes dramatically. 

Phil smiles wide. “You’ll kick that exam’s ass.” 

“Okay, bub,” Dan pats at Phil’s hand, follows it as it falls, the two of them breaking apart just over the threshold of Dan’s front door. “Get home safe, let me know if you get scooped up by any giant pigeon robots, or whatever.” 

“Of course.” 

With that, Dan leans against the frame of the door and watches Phil disappear down the stairs, listening to his clumsy feet echoing all the way down before retreating into the silence of his flat. 

  
  


**phil:** _Unfortunately no sexy robot birds took me away </3_

**dan:** _UNFORTUNATELY???!!!_

  
 **phil:** _Hehe_


	14. Chapter 14

The sun hasn’t even graced the sky with its presence when Dan’s alarm pulls him out of sleep. He groans softly, but rises easily—surprising, but less so considering that he actually did listen to Phil and crawled into bed early. He did it so he’d be well rested for his exam at hell a.m. in the morning—otherwise known as eight—and definitely _not_ because his other pillow still smells like Phil’s shampoo and he already missed him. 

They aren’t even in different cities yet, and he’s supposed to be used to only ever seeing him once or twice a week. If there’s a level beyond too far gone, Dan’s there. 

He just… decided he deserved an early night in, felt accomplished enough with their revision session that he could ignore the textbooks stacked on his desk that he brought in from the lounge, could put off his house chores for one more day. His warm dreams were nothing more than a product of a full night’s sleep. That’s all. 

Dressing quickly, mostly just pulling more layers over his pajamas, Dan makes laps around his apartment, shoving things in his backpack and the last of his cereal in his mouth. He slides his feet into his trainers and pulls on a beanie and his parka as light starts to leak through the windows in the lounge. He slings his bag over his shoulder and grabs his keys, opening the door with a deep inhale and hoping for the best. 

As it turns out, the stupid, nonsensical mnemonic devices Phil made up on the spot yesterday, and the… _bewildering_ song he made up and had dubbed _Slutty, Slutty Socrates_ actually did help Dan on his exam. He’s not necessarily the best judge when it comes to coursework, having handed in a paper once that he thought he aced and got back with one of the lowest marks he’s ever received. But he has a good feeling about this one—even finished and looked over it with twenty minutes left in the sitting. 

He finds himself still humming one of Phil’s ridiculous ditties as he trudges up the stairs to his flat. He wants to be mad about it, he really does, but it’s impossible. Phil just seems to have that effect on him. 

“Freud, Freud, he’s a boy,” Dan mumbles under his breath, tapping his foot as he pauses by his door to pick out the right key. “He wants to fuck his mom, he is _not_ the bomb.” 

“Jesus christ, Dan,” he mutters to himself, opening the door. “So fucking weird.” And yet, he can’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. 

In an attempt to wipe Phil’s wildly inappropriate philosopher songs from his brain, Dan brings his speakers out to the lounge, cueing up Kanye’s latest album—which, he’s already declared an instant classic, by the way—to play throughout the flat as he starts his laundry list of chores. 

Actual laundry is apparently one of the last things on that list. He really does know why he dreads it so much, letting it pile up more and more until it’s quite literally unbearable. 

The lounge gets tidied first, Dan jacking up the volume as he hoovers under the sofa and finds a decent handful of pocket change in its cushions. 

“Merry Christmas to you Dan,” he hums sardonically to himself as he pockets it, his sweatpants making a little tinny jingle every now and then as he continues on. 

The kitchen gets done, Dan leaving the sink and counters spotless as he exits and drops the tied up bin bag by the front door. So he’ll remember to take it out when he goes down to the creepy basement to do his laundry, because he still needs to do his laundry. And he’s basically checked off everything else on his list, save packing. 

Packing. He can do that actually. Dan bounces down the hall with a slight spring in his step, ducking into his room to empty his backpack of school stuff so he can fill it with his electronics, toiletries, basically anything he needs that he doesn’t have at his mum’s, and that isn’t clothes. 

As he shoves a few loose pens and notebooks into his top desk drawer, his eyes land on the forgotten book he never did get through and return before break. He sighs softly, shrugging as he picks it up and drops it into his bag. At least he can get some reading done on the train. 

When just about everything in the world is done—including Dan flopping face down on his bed to have a little scream at the realization that he’s going home to _regress_ tomorrow morning—Dan _finally_ begrudgingly pulls out his absolute leaning tower of a laundry basket. He has a sit on his floor and pulls out less important stuff, like his spare sheets and towels—he can do those another time. And the tower is more of a small mountain by the time he’s carefully walking it down the stairs, like at any point the smallest whisper of a draft could either knock him, or it, tumbling all the way down. 

He manages somehow, with his too much laundry and near-slipping bin bag. He stops to toss the rubbish and continues on with a few, “ _Ew, ew, ew,”s_ after feeling something slimy on his hand when he picks his laundry back up. His trainers echo on the dark concrete floor of the basement, picking up a melody with the dryer he can hear softly humming from the laundry room. 

The bin juice is rinsed from his hand in the frigid washer water and Dan dumps his clothes into two machines—most of his sorting just making sure neither is more overstuffed than the other. Not much thought has to go into laundry when you live on the greyscale and your only red article of clothing is with the hottest guy in Manchester. 

And here he is—Dan slams both of the lids shut after thoroughly rinsing the detergent lid and tossing it back in his basket—thinking about Phil again. His deep sigh is swallowed by the loud rattle of the washing machines, and he sticks his hand in his pocket for his phone, Sigh 2: Electric Boogaloo happening as he grips around nothing but change. 

He left his phone upstairs. 

Usually, he jumps up on the machine and gets lost in scrolling his phone for the duration—a bit traumatized after someone had taken every single pair of pants from Adam’s unsupervised washing, leaving everything else—but he thinks he’ll end up bashing his head against the wall if he sits here with nothing to think about but pink lips and the vibration under his bum. 

“Risking it,” he makes the call, grabbing his basket and making his way back down the creepy basement hall and up the stairs. 

When he’s back in his flat, he glares daggers at his phone left abandoned on his bed. He sets an alarm for however many minutes were left on the machine and pads into the bathroom, deciding now’s as good a time as any to take a long, hot shower. 

He turns the water all the way up and restarts the album on his phone. He’ll be able to have a bit of a lie in tomorrow morning, not having to get up earlier to shower, he tells himself as he strips. 

And besides, he’s kind of still thinking about Phil. 

“What sin did I commit to deserve this?” Dan groans as the lights flicker off. The hot, steady stream of his shower noticeably reduces in pressure, and Dan races against the clock to scrub out the last remnants of conditioner in his hair as he feels it start to go tepid. 

He knows. Exactly what sin he committed. But he doesn’t dwell on it—doesn’t dwell on the flush of his cheeks that’s from far more than the hot water—as he frantically rinses himself off and shuts off the now chilled water. He fumbles around in the dark for the shower door, some more for his towel, until he’s got a wet hand around his phone to use it as a torch. 

Dan opens the bathroom door before he’s even dried off or dressed, a false hope that the sun hasn’t dipped low enough yet for there to still be light in the rooms of the flat with windows. 

Of course it’s fucking December and it’s nearly pitch black outside. He looks at the time on his phone and groans—it’s actually much later than he thought. He guesses he just didn’t realize with his tendency to turn on every light in the flat when he’s home alone. 

He just… has a thing about the dark. And being alone. 

Being alone in the dark. 

Which is, the exact situation he’s found himself in now. 

It makes sense, if he can take himself out of the horror movie situations that are starting to float around his head. He remembers just how windy it was on his walk back to his flat—he nearly lost his beanie twice—and he can hear the slightest howl of it still whipping against the windows. It’s really not uncommon for the lights to flicker when the weather gets like this. 

The building is older, rent is cheap, but they’ve never experienced a power outage that wasn’t more than a few flickers and an instant return. So when Dan is still sat on his bed in near darkness thirty minutes later, damp hair chilling him to the bone as he curses himself for going minimalist with the singular scented candle on his desk, he realizes he’s actually going to have to do something about this. 

That something is apparently, pulling back on the clothes he was just wearing—making the executive commando judgement call—and traveling across his flat holding his phone torch and tiny burning candle for assistance. He leaves the candle on the counter in the kitchen, deciding he doesn’t want to look like _that_ much of a freak, and grabs his keys. 

He thinks it’s the shortest amount of time he’s _ever_ made it down the stairs to the ground floor. He’d like to believe it’s because he’s getting fitter instead of the fact that he was just terrified of something lurking in the dark grabbing at his ankles. 

It’s… not good news. 

Of course they don’t have a generator. Of course it isn’t just a surge, but an actual wire knocked loose or whatever technical electrician jargon the building manager starts to explain and instantly loses him. 

They’re ‘ _trying their best to fix it soon’_ , but that _soon_ has the absolutely cryptic undertones of ‘ _somewhere between tomorrow and next Tuesday’._

The building manager is at least kind enough to take pity on Dan’s shaking hands—the dreadful whine in his voice when he mentions he’s got wet clothes halfway through a cycle downstairs—and offers him this clunky, industrial looking torch. 

It’s much brighter than his phone or any dinky candle, but it really doesn’t solve any of his problems. After much huffing and puffing and psyching himself up that _no, Mothman isn’t real and he’s not going to emerge from the corner of the basement just cause he’s got a light_ , Dan makes his way back up and down again. He props the big torch up on top of one of the machines, like the most haunting spotlight as he opens the machine and peers into it with a horrified expression. 

_Soon._ Dan fucking hates _soon_. Not anytime soon, but soon nonetheless? What does that even _mean?_ He grumbles as he pulls his wet, still slightly soapy clothes out of the machine, dropping them with a moist slap of a thud into his basket. He’s actually so annoyed he powers right through it, not even jumping at every small movement he makes up out of the corners of his eyes in the dark. 

It’s about three thousand tons on the walk back up the stairs, his arms shaking by the time he slams the basket down the second he makes it to his floor. And Dan reckons the little cry he has on his kitchen floor under the soft, flickering light of his stupid little candle is warranted. 

He’s lying face up on the kitchen floor, the cool tiles chilling him through his tee shirt as he blankly watches the shadows that jump across the ceiling, when it dawns on him that he hasn’t plugged in his phone since he took it off the charger this morning. 

With a pitiful groan, he pats his hand on the floor to his side until it comes in contact with his phone. Another whiny noise rips from his throat as his screen lights up and he confirms it is, in fact, nearly drained of battery. 

Dan has a choice, basically two options he can think of. Lay here on the kitchen floor until he rots or the lights turn back on, whichever comes first. Or, see if anyone is still in Manchester—hope that if someone is, they’ll let him drag his sad little body to their place so he can do something about his clothes and not have to spend his last night of peace absolutely miserable. 

He briefly wonders if either of those plans would allow for him to spin some elaborate reason why he actually can’t come home for Christmas. It’s definitely a new low, but he’ll take whatever he can get. 

When he comes up short, he sighs softly and unlocks his phone again, opening the group chat. 

**dan:** _is anyone still in the city?_

Dan waits, impatiently tapping his fingers against the floor tile with one hand while he holds his phone over his face with the other. 

**dan:** _big sos situ_

**char:** _You okay?????_

**char:** _We left last nite, down south now_

**dan:** _:/ physically? yes everything else? hahahhah_

**char:** _Ok, cryptid_

**dan:** _just the apocalypse starting in my flat_

**char:** _oh????_

**phil:** _I’m still here!!_

**phil:** _You alright? o.o Need me?_

“Yes, desperately,” Dan hums to himself. He shakes his head and tries to form a coherent thought before his phone decides to die. 

**dan:** _ww3 in my flat_

**dan:** _powers out and probs wont be fixed tonight i have a train tomorrow morning and my entire fucking wardrobe is soaking wet_

**phil:** _A leak??_

**dan:** _????_

**dan:** _OH_

**dan:** _no i was doing fucking laundry end me now_

**phil:** _:((_

**phil:** _Come over. I just got home_

Dan sits up at that, nearly dropping his phone on his face with the sudden movement. His phone buzzes a few more times by the time he’s gotten himself up on his half asleep, tingly legs. 

**phil:** _Wait_

**phil:** _You can only come if u solve my riddle_

Dan quirks a brow. 

**dan:** _???_

**phil:** _Indian or Chinese?_

Dan snorts, shaking his head as he walks out of the kitchen, tapping away at his screen. 

**dan:** _indian always_

**phil:** _You may cross the bridge ^.^_

**phil:** _(also send me ur order)_


	15. Chapter 15

Dan wrangles his suitcase out of their small storage closet in the hall and haphazardly dumps his soggy laundry into it, his hands frigid and wet as he shuffles it around and pats it down until he’s able to zip the case closed. He had planned to only take his backpack and duffle bag, as he really only needs to bring a fraction of these clothes, but he guesses all plans are officially out the window. And he can’t do much more besides whine about it or go along. 

So he goes along. 

There’s one last mental double check as he stands in the hall, his parka zipped up to his chin and his hood flopped over his head, backpack hanging from his shoulders and his keys clanking against the plastic handle of his suitcase. His shoes echo in the quiet flat as he pops into the kitchen, remembering to blow out the candle. 

That would’ve been a good one: Dan sets the whole house on fire for Christmas. 

The room is plunged in darkness, Dan darting back out and using the last of his phone battery to light the way down the stairs—his heavy suitcase clunking loudly on each individual step. 

The second he pushes the door open the wind whips at his face, Dan staggering backwards as his hood flies off his head. He pulls it back up, tugs at it until it’s snug over his head and a good portion of his face, and spends a good two seconds outside his building debating if he should try to call a cab. 

It’s a short walk though, reckons it won’t be that bad since the direction he needs to go doesn’t seem to be the full on wind eye assault zone. He hikes the straps of his bag up his shoulders and turns to the right, the little wheels of his suitcase bouncing and clacking against the pavement as he trudges along. 

In one—hopefully—last laugh from the universe, a sort of misty drizzle starts to pick up just as Dan is close enough to pick out Phil’s building. It feels like little pin prick ice daggers at the side of his face as he picks up his pace, leaving Dan another layer of miserable—out of breath and wheezing on Phil’s steps. 

His phone is dead in his coat pocket so he squints as he presses his body as close as he can to the side of the building, locating Phil’s name and jabbing his gloved finger against the buzzer. 

“‘Ello.” Phil’s voice is so deep over the crackling speaker that Dan nearly second guesses he pressed the right one. But it’s Phil, Dan would know that voice in any iteration, even if it takes him a moment to get there. 

“Hi,” Dan says back, short and breathless. 

“Oh!” He hears a tinny laugh. “I thought you were the delivery guy with _another_ bag of dips.” 

“Are you _really_ dip shaming me right now? In the rain?!” 

“Oop- sorry! I’m on eighteen, right across from the lift, come up!” The harsh sound of the buzzer rattles around Dan’s head, and he lunges forward to pull open the door, tugging the battered wheels of his suitcase over the bump of the threshold. 

Not having to climb any more flights of stairs is nothing short of a miracle, Dan—mostly—catching his breath and pulling himself together as the lift climbs higher and higher. He jolts with the little chime when it reaches Phil’s floor, and the doors open to crossed arms and a lazy smirk, Phil leaning in his open doorway across the hall. 

“You look like a Ringwraith,” Phil snorts before Dan has even made it out of the lift. 

“I didn’t come here to be bullied,” Dan huffs, light, pulling at his suitcase to get it over the gap. 

He looks up at Phil with his nose all scrunched up once he does, and the teasing expression is wiped right off his face. 

The purple graphic tee Phil has on is unjustly tight, the fabric of the sleeves stretching around his arms in a way that should be downright illegal. It’s offset—maybe, barely, perhaps not at all—by the absolutely ridiculous Cookie Monster pajamas he’s got on his legs, and the two mismatched socks on his feet. 

Because, yeah, Dan’s looking him up and all the way down as he makes the short journey across the hall, the wheels of his suitcase resisting the slightest bit against the carpeting underfoot.

Feet, apparently, can be cute. 

Dan learns something new every day, it seems. 

He snaps his head back up when he realizes he’s staring, when Phil gives him a second, softer greeting and brings him back to reality. 

Well. Maybe it’s all reality, but Dan’s adamant about believing he’s living in the one in which he doesn’t stare at his best friend like he’s a three course meal. 

That immediately goes down the drain with his dignity as Dan looks up, properly registering the look on Phil’s face as it falls into something more of a frown. 

For all of Dan’s daydreaming about what Phil would look like in glasses since the other night, he is decidedly _not_ prepared for this reality. What the hell is it with hot nerds? He muses as he feels the cooling heat under his cheeks reignite, teeth pulling at his bottom lip, eyes unable to do anything but flick between the thick black frames sitting slightly crooked on his nose, and the hair that’s uncharacteristically swept off his forehead. 

Maybe all of the events of today have left Dan with little oxygen to his brain, because he truly can’t even form a coherent thought, never mind sentence, or even word, to greet Phil with when he’s stood across him looking like _this._

Any and all denial lingering in the dark corners of Dan’s brain is hissing at the light of Phil’s sun. Dan doesn’t think he’s able to stop it, doesn’t think he’d even try if he could. It becomes more and more apparent that this is the path he’s chosen, not necessarily stumbled upon, and he’s really just been dicking around with side quests to slow his pace. 

It may not be a bad thing, he thinks as Phil coos at his sad state and pulls him through the door, helping him out of his wet coat. But he can’t help but feel like he’s been missing out on something this whole time—still is as Phil swaps the green hoodie hanging by the door for Dan’s dripping coat, stepping right into his space to help him into it. 

On another path, Dan makes Phil forget about the hoodie altogether, surging forward and pressing his cold lips to Phil’s to warm himself that way instead. 

On this path though, Dan just tries to grumble in protest through giggles, gets his head stuck—or, more accurately, Phil gets his head stuck—in the tangle and insistent shaky hands of it all. A proper barrier for any lingering thoughts of _what if?_

“I can do it,” Dan’s voice is muffled by the fabric, spluttering around the hoodie string that somehow makes its way into his mouth. “I can do it.” 

“Shh,” Phil battles with one of the sleeves, “let me just- let me take care of you.” 

“You’re being ridiculous, I’m fine,” Dan says as he twists his limbs around to help Phil out. 

“You’re all _damp_ ,” Phil protests. He finally manages to get the fabric around Dan’s head untangled—Dan honestly not too sure how it _got_ tangled in the first place, like a pair of headphones left to their own devices—and his warm hands are all over Dan’s skin as he pulls him through. 

“Oh!” Phil’s frowning now that Dan can see more than just… green. “Your cheeks are so cold.” He presses his hands to Dan’s face, Dan frozen in place with one arm in a hoodie that doesn’t belong to him, unconsciously leaning into the touch. “Do you want me to start you a hot shower? And I’ll put the kettle on for a cuppa-” 

“Phil,” Dan stops him, smiling slightly as he lifts his hands to take Phil’s. “I’m good. Really good.” 

Phil pouts, lets Dan just stand there holding both of his hands like that’s completely normal—like all of this is completely normal. “Are you sure?” 

Dan nods, giving Phil’s hands a squeeze before letting them go so he can right the hoodie that’s only half on him. 

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want to take a hot shower or something?”

“Is this your way of telling me I stink?” Dan starts to laugh, says it as a joke really, but then it dawns on him. His eyes go wide as he realizes, as instantaneous as a cat that’s about to go fucking stupid. His hair had mostly air dried, what with him unable to go at it with straighteners or even as much as a hair dryer before the power went out. 

Which means, he’s got an entire mop of curls on his head out on full display. 

Dan scrambles to pull the hood of Phil’s hoodie up over his head while Phil stutters through something about him smelling, _“Quite good actually.”_

That big, plush looking bottom lip pushes out even further when Dan dares to look him in the face again. 

“Didn’t know you had curly hair,” Phil says softly, his lip retreating as he very distractingly pulls it in to bite at it. That’s something Dan would quite like to do… 

“Yeah, well-” Dan looks up,towards the ceiling, feeling blood rushing to all sorts of places. “Erase it from your memory after you let me use your straighteners, please.”

“Ummmm.” Phil is looking off to the side when Dan looks back at him, his cheeks the same shade of pink as his lips. Dan really doesn’t like how suspicious he looks—so cute but so, so suspicious. 

Dan narrows his eyes. _“Wot?”_

Phil purses his lips, avoids Dan’s eyes for a few more seconds. “Well, I-” 

“Don’t tell me you don’t straighten your hair?” Dan nearly whines, nearly stomps his foot on the floor like a toddler throwing a tantrum. He didn’t even think to pack anything else with this last minute change, thought he could get away with just using his old GHDs at his mum’s. “That’s not _fair,_ ” he actually does whine, “it always looks so perfect.”

Phil quickly shakes his head. “I do.” _Hope_ , there’s hope. “No,” he shakes it again, sounding unsure of himself, “I _did_.” Dan deflates. “I think I could dig them out, but they’re super old and don’t get very hot anymore.”

“I guess I will simply die,” Dan groans dramatically. He guesses there _are_ worse things than having to be burdened with his stupid Hobbit-ey hair for the next twelve hours or so. He could still be alone in his dark apartment right now, so. Phil seeing him at his worst is just barely a fair price to pay. 

“Nooo,” Phil pouts, “it’s cute. No dying allowed.” 

“Shh”, Dan hushes him, pulling the hood tighter around his head by the hoodie strings. “Forget it exists. Please. I’m having a day.” 

Phil’s easy smile falls. He clicks his tongue as he steps forward, looking at Dan with his brows all knit together. He reaches out to rub a hand up and down Dan’s arm, staring at his face like he’s trying to decipher some foreign language there—Dan frozen in his spot, though it’s not the best word to use as he feels the very opposite of cold. Phil stops his movements with an oddly comforting pat at his bicep, the corner of his lip twitching upwards before he lifts his other hand to fumble around with the fabric against Dan’s neck. 

Quick fingers tie the most lopsided bow, Dan snorting and biting back his commentary as he watches Phil make two big loops like a child that’s just learned to tie their shoes. 

“Alright.” Phil pats the drooping bow and steps back, appraising his work with a nod that makes Dan blush. “Let’s get to fixing that then,” he says with a smile, nodding his head towards the kitchen. 

“Okay,” Dan says quietly, feeling as small as his voice as he follows after Phil like a duckling.

Dan’s suitcase thuds against the tile when he sets it down, Phil directing him to his washing machine and pointing out the settings as if he’s never seen one before. 

“And this is my favorite button here,” Phil twists a dial on the front a few times, looking up at Dan from where he’s bent over. “Just fun to spin,” he says with a smile. 

Dan rolls his eyes, ignoring the display of cuteness and crouching down to unzip his damp suitcase. 

“Anyway,” Phil sets the dial back, “do you just need the dryer?”

“No, they were mid-wash.” Dan gets the zip all the way around and flops the top over to rest against the cupboard. He peels one of his freezing cold shirts up off the top and stretches up, shaking it a little to get it to un-stiffen. The little white flakey soapy bits looking like a sprinkle of snow—or, like dandruff if he wants to be less poetic about it—stand out prominently on the soaking wet, black fabric. “They come pre-soaped and everything,” Dan says sardonically with a big, fake grin.

“Oh my god, Dan.” Phil looks absolutely horrified, eyes all wide with that… _distracting_ mouth dropped open. 

“I’m going to have to like- _pray_ this dries.” Dan kicks at his suitcase. “It wasn’t raining when I left,” he turns to open the washer, tossing the shirt in, “I would’ve sprang for a cab.” He turns back to Phil and does a little shrug—there’s nothing he can do about it now. 

“Are those wet too?” Phil gestures to Dan’s sweatpants. “Do you want pajamas? I’ll go get you pajamas. Oh! And I’ll turn the heat up!” Phil is out of the room before Dan can even respond. 

“Phil, I’m fine!” he calls out after him with a breathy laugh, getting that same insistence shouted back in response. That alone makes Dan have no use for any additional warmth, he’s sated to his absolute core. 

He’s still peeling apart his stiff, wet clothes and loading them into the washing machine when Phil reappears with the softest looking red plaid pajamas in his hands. He offers them out to Dan with an expectant look on his face, eyes all bright and wide. 

Dan takes them, laughs nervously when Phil just continues to look at him. 

“I’m not going to just drop trou right here, Phil,” Dan says, lifting his brows. 

“Oh!” Phil shakes his head, stepping back like he’s just realized he was staring. “Sorry! Kind of sleepy.” He starts to turn to leave the kitchen, waving a hand around for whatever reason. “I’ll leave you to it!” 

“Don’t go!” Dan shakes his head, cursing his mouth for moving faster than his brain. What kind of weirdo admits to liking someone’s presence so much that he doesn’t want him to leave him alone even for a few minutes of throwing in laundry? It’s pathetic, really—pathetically transparent. 

Phil stops in his tracks, turning back around to Dan with a slight tilt of his head. 

“I mean- just-” Dan twirls his finger around. “Turn around for a sec.” 

With a knowing smile, Phil does as he’s told. 

“You know I’ve seen you in your pants before,” Phil says, Dan keeping his eyes trained on the back of his head as he pushes his sweatpants down and steps out of them. 

“Hmm, I’ve decided my memory is selective,” Dan hums, his face reaching record breaking temperatures as he all out Winnie The Poohs it in the middle of Phil’s open kitchen. “Also no free shows.” 

“Not even for your savior?” Phil sounds genuinely offended. It makes Dan laugh, nearly falling over as he attempts to step into Phil’s soft pajamas.

“God complex, much?” Dan snorts, pulling them over his hips—now fully decked out in _Phil._

“I’m kidding!” Phil’s got his hands up even with his back turned. Something about it makes Dan’s heart skip a few beats. 

“I know,” Dan smiles fondly, rolling his eyes to no one but himself, “me too.” He lets his eyes flick down to the garish blue on Phil’s bum one last time—because he’s fucking… evil apparently—before adding, “I’m clothed now, Your Highness.” 

Phil spins around, closing his eyes and lifting his chin to Dan as he gives him one of those stuffy royal waves. Dan rolls his eyes again—with a witness this time, Phil opening his eyes—and humors him with an overdramatic bow. 

He comes up with a flourish, and looks back at Phil with easy laughter on his tongue. His breath catches on an uptake—caught off guard by the way Phil is looking him up and down, pink dusting the highest point of his cheeks. 

“You look very… _festive_ ,” Phil breaks the quiet in the absence of Dan’s laughter. He bounces his eyebrows a few times, looking absolutely ridiculous as he does, and Dan can breathe again. 

“ _God_ ,” Dan groans. “Was this your plan all along?” He asks as he turns back to sorting out his clothes. Phil hops up on his breakfast bar behind him, his feet making soft little thumps against its side as he swings them. 

“Yeah, I chewed through the wires of your building so I could get some Christmas on your bum.” Phil swings a foot forward to kick Dan right in the left cheek, the flesh doing a little jiggle as Phil giggles. 

Dan darts a hand back, swatting at Phil’s foot and blindly attempting to grab at his ankle. He’s really mostly unfazed. 

“Well you are a biter,” Dan says, giving up when it seems Phil has retreated. “So I’d believe that.” 

Phil gasps. “I am not a biter! What does that even mean?!” 

“You know _exactly_ what that means,” Dan says as he tosses in a pair of jeans. 

Phil makes a little strangled noise from behind him, Dan paying him no mind as he continues on with his washing. There’s a beat of silence, then the soft thud of Phil’s feet landing on the floor. 

Dan can barely react before he’s got his arms all wrapped around his waist, pulling him flush to his chest so he can dip his head and bite through the fabric that’s covering his shoulder with a little rabid growling noise in his throat. 

He’s… _God,_ Dan doesn’t even know. He just knows he fucking loves this, fucking loves everything about Phil. It’s a lot. It’s so, so much and not nearly enough. 

“Phiil,” Dan goes for a reprimand, but it just falls into a whine. He’s so desperate to push back into it, press himself against Phil and see if he’d let it be more than just his usual friendly banter. But Phil pulls away too quickly, giggling like he’s not just done something evil. He doesn’t retreat though, instead stepping to Dan’s side to help him pull apart his clothes. 

Their food is still warm by the time the machine is humming softly, and they sit cross legged, knees pressed together on Phil’s small leather sofa as they eat and tune in and out of the cheesy Christmas film Phil puts on. Dan sets out all the various dips he requested and attempts to show Phil the way—smiling and laughing until his cheeks ache at all the different faces of distaste and pleasure Phil makes as he tentatively tries each one. 

Phil’s flat is smaller than Dan’s, Dan taking it in with wandering, curious eyes as he chews and mostly ignores whatever’s happening on the telly. He lives alone, so the size makes sense, but it’s also _significantly_ nicer. 

_Hell,_ he has a working lift. That should say it all. 

There’s something very _cozy_ about it, all of Phil’s little things strewn about, the place filled without feeling cramped. And everything about it just screams _Phil’s home_ , from the Muse poster on the wall to the Buffy boxset messily laid out in front of the TV stand—clearly left from a recent binge. 

Inexplicably, Dan feels a sense of permanence here. All the little trinkets sitting on his games and DVDs building up over time, like this is their home too. Like it’s much less of a stop over—how Dan feels about his own place. 

Something that isn’t even permanent radiates that feeling the strongest of all, its pulsing cool blue and white lights washing the whole space in an icy glow. The stout little tree sits in the corner of the room, pushed up against the sleek wall of glass that leads out to a small balcony and the twinkling lights of Manchester. 

“Are you like, loaded?” Dan asks, losing the filter to his mouth as he stares out at the view. 

Phil shrugs beside him. “‘M comfortable,” he says around his naan. “Think the last tenant died here or something.” 

“Or something?” Dan whips his head around to look at Phil, lifting a brow. “Aren’t they supposed to disclose that?” 

“They did,” Phil says easily. “I just don’t remember the details." 

“ _Phil.”_ Dan shoots him a bewildered look, breaks it up with laughter and the fond shake of his head as Phil just shrugs all innocently again. 

Dan leans forward and scoops more chicken onto the bread he’s been picking at. “Well I guess I’m happy for you and your cheap haunted apartment, then,” he says before taking a bite. 

“When did I say it was haunted?” Phil asks. 

Dan chews, smirking. “Kind of a given, right? If not by ghosts, at least by you.”

“ _Hey!”_ Phil shoves at his shoulder. A bit of Dan’s chicken flings to the floor, abandoning ship with the movement. “You’re rude.” 

“Mmm,” Dan hums around another bite, chewing slowly. “Shame you like me so much.” 

“Yeah,” Phil knocks their knees together, “ _shame.”_

“How was your day?” Dan breaks through the syrupy warm feeling in his chest before he drowns in it. “Any evil little customers to report on?” 

“Oh my god,” Phil mumbles around his food. “You would not believe-” 

And Dan leans back against the cushions with his little pot of dip and last bit of naan, listening and laughing and gasping as Phil takes him on the journey of his day—finding it just nice to listen and soak it all in. 

“Noo,” Dan’s protest is overtaken by a yawn as he pauses mid-lunge to shake it out. Phil has a hand over his mouth when he does, caught in his own yawn with a pair of Dan’s pants on his lap. “You don’t need to fold my pants,” Dan says, snatching the black fabric from him and sitting back on his bum with a soft thud against the carpet. 

He doesn’t need to be folding any of Dan’s clothes, really, but he had insisted. The two of them going through a couple more films as Dan switched out his laundry and they sipped hot chocolates with far too many marshmallows à la Phil. 

“Do you own anything that’s not black?” Phil ignores Dan, picks up another pair of pants from the pile and folds them into a neat little square, joining the pair Dan just placed in his now dry suitcase. 

“Uhhh yeah?” Dan tugs at something light at the bottom of the pile in the middle of Phil’s lounge, pulls out a grey cardigan. “This isn’t black.” 

Phil rolls his eyes, smiling all fond and dangerous for Dan’s tired heart. “You’re impossible.” 

“I have an-” Dan’s cut off by another yawn. “-aesthetic,” he gets out at the tail end. 

“Sleepy boy,” Phil says softly, leaning over tapping his knee with the folded bundle in his hands before dropping it in the case. 

“Don’t bully me,” Dan says, turning the inside out shirt in his hands the right way. “Was up at hell time for my exam.” 

Phil makes a soft little noise in his throat. “Well we’re almost done here and then we can get you to bed.” 

“ _We_?” Dan looks at Phil with his brows high on his forehead. 

Phil just giggles, his cheeks squishing up as he smiles wide. “Yes, we.” 

Dan rolls his eyes, masking the way Phil’s stupid face makes his heart flip. He’s thankful he’s at least got something to do with his hands, because all they want to do is reach out. 

Once Dan’s suitcase is zipped back up, laundry finally finished after far too many hours and changes of location, they decide to turn in early—Dan with his morning train and Phil having to work early. 

Dan’s toothbrush sits on Phil’s sink, where it will remain until morning, and Dan flicks the light off before stepping out of the bathroom. There’s a soft light coming from Phil’s room, eclipsing just as Dan’s eyes start to adjust as Phil steps through the doorway with a hefty bundle in his arms. Or, at least, Dan thinks it’s Phil—his entire upper half covered by a bright geometric blanket. He barrels past him, Dan stepping right out of the way knowing Phil’s track record with keeping feet on the ground. Something aches in his chest, a familiar feeling, as he pads after him down the short hall. He can’t very well ask if they can sleep together, can’t understand why the ache and pull is so strong as he watches Phil toss the bedding onto the sofa. 

There’s so many things he could say. So many different truths and half truths and excuses. He wants to be held. Phil’s legs are too long. He thinks this feeling could be love. 

But he says none of them, only attempts to protest when Phil insists on taking the sofa. Phil brushes him off, shaking his head and steering Dan back down the hall with his hands on his shoulders, going off about him falling asleep on the sofa all the time and _it’s only one night_ and how he wants Dan to have a good night’s sleep. 

He goes as far as trying to tuck Dan in, the two of them all sleepy giggles and uncoordinated limbs batting at each other until Dan finally gives in and flops down onto Phil’s plush bed, pulling his bright blue and green duvet up to his chin. 

“Phil I’m fine,” Dan groans lightly, unable to keep his smile out of his voice as Phil fluffs the pillow that’s already under his head. 

“I want you to be more than fine,” Phil says, looking down at him, eyes dark in the low light. His hand on the pillow lifts, hovering over Dan’s head for a second before he pulls it away. “Are you cozy?” Phil asks. 

He’s in Phil’s room, all tucked up in Phil’s bed, still in Phil’s hoodie, with Phil looking down at him like he’s something worth fretting over. He’s entirely, completely enveloped in Phil. Of course he’s fucking cozy. 

“Yes.”

“Warm?” 

“Yes. Are you going to read me a fucking bedtime story?” he asks, voice far too tender for the words. 

Phil chuckles softly. “Do you want me to?” 

Yes, yes he’d actually quite like for him to crawl into the other side of the bed and never leave. 

“No Phil.” Dan rolls his eyes, yawning as Phil laughs. 

“Alright, _Dan_.” Phil tries to mock him, really only ends up making himself laugh again. “You’ve got everything you need?” 

No. 

“Yes.” 

Phil nods. He leans over again, makes Dan’s breath hitch before he realizes he’s just flicking off the lamp on the nightstand, plunging the room into darkness—save the city lights leaking in through the cracks in the blinds. He retreats, and Dan wants to follow. 

“Goodnight Dan,” Phil says by the door, hand on it to swing it closed. 

“Phil?” Dan calls in a weak voice—as weak as he feels. 

“Yeah?” Phil’s voice is low, something deep that hums through Dan’s bones, melting him further into the bed. 

“Can you leave the door open?” he asks. 

“Of course.” 

“Night Phil.” 

“Sleep well.”

With the overwhelming amount of Phil swimming around his head, and the soft howling and patter of the storm outside against Phil’s window, Dan curls up around himself. Somehow, sleep comes easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! We are back! I was planning on writing through the weekend to get this done before Christmas but then Sierra's apparently yearly christmas curse happened and my laptop decided it was time to completely leave this plane of existence D: Because I have been writing this as I go and haven't had prewritten chapters for a HOT minute I genuinely thought there'd be no way for me to actually finish this story before Christmas (or anytime soon really) but I was FLOORED by the kindness of a v v v sweet and generous person that helped me out and allowed me to get a replacement so fucking quickly. Like seriously I'm still crying, still beyond grateful and this is fully a plaque in your honor right here hahah. I had the majority of this chapter written Friday afternoon before the laptop reckoning and it was very slow going (basically lost the weekend) finishing and editing it on mobile and now I'm posting on mobile to get it out there so I am super sorry if there's like any glaring formatting issues or anything it's like v much impossible for me to navigate writing and posting on my phone.  
> I should be back on the horse at some point today! Patiently waiting at the window like a meerkat for the delivery person while I keep one eye on my Phil notifs for outfit video, lmao, and I'm FULLY going to be locking myself down to finish writing this hopefully hopefully for Christmas.  
> <333 love u guys and I cannot wait until everything is not so aaaAAAAAAAAAAAA so I can actually sit down and reply to comments (been reading them over and over as always dw)


	16. Chapter 16

_“Dan, Dan, Dan.”_

Dan grumbles nonsensical words, a low whine in his throat as he floats in his warm dream. He’s surrounded by it, by the warmth and the plush softness and the Phil that’s suddenly appeared.

Pressing his face further into the pillow, Dan breathes in, languid and deep, fills his senses with the musky sweetness he’s come to associate with Phil. 

He’s absolutely drowning in it, really, smothered in a way he doesn’t want to wriggle out of—content to just be floating in it. Dream Phil touches him softly. The heat of his hand against his shoulder travels to the center of his chest, down to the pit of his stomach, further, until Dan’s lazily pressing himself into the sheets on every exhale. 

Phil’s grip tightens, slender fingers wrapping around his bicep. A deep, faraway voice is insistent in his ear, all muffled and jumbled—as if he’s underwater. With the way he floats, caressed softly at every angle, he may very well be. Breath tickles at his neck as he hears his name again, the sound reverberating against his skull and sending a shiver down his spine. 

“Mmmn, Phiw,” Dan whines, feeling like a heavy, sinking weight as his dry mouth opens and closes, lips remaining parted as he sighs deeply and starts to float again. 

“Dan.” 

He’s shaken out of it. Three firm pushes—his shoulder jostled forward, back, forward again—and he’s no longer floating, but plummeting. He feels his stomach swoop, jolting awake with a sharp gasp. 

Pushing up on his elbows and blinking slowly, his dreams and reality intertwine. Dan’s face is hot, his tired brain having to actively think about regulating his breathing—lest he wants to start panting. The shock of it all is at least a cool splash of water, his dick less insistent against the now tight material of Phil’s pajamas. 

There’s a hand on his shoulder still. That was real, at least. Phil’s hand. Which is now gently rubbing small circles into Dan’s arm with his thumb. 

He looks up blearily at Phil. Bird’s nest hair, crooked glasses, and that pink pout he so desperately wants to kiss looking back at him as he blinks sleep from his eyes. His mouth is moving, but Dan still feels half underwater, the ringing in his ears slowly dying down as he lets the dream slip from him entirely. 

“-mean to give you a fright.” Phil’s words start to permeate his ears. “Didn’t know you were such a heavy sleeper.” 

He’s usually not, per se, but he reckons disagreeing and explaining just exactly why he was so deep in dreamland isn’t the best idea. His skin feels warm all over just from the reminder.

Though it never _really_ cooled down in the first place. 

Phil leans forward from where he’s sat on the edge of the bed, holding out his hand with a crease in his brow and a frown on his mouth. He presses the back of his hand against Dan’s clammy forehead, like a rush of cool relief that he can’t help but push up into. 

“Are you feeling poorly?” Phil asks, voice barely above a hush—not wanting to break the quiet bubble encasing the room now that he’s gotten Dan awake. 

Dan shrugs. “Just warm.” He’s not lying at least. He feels like he’s on fire, only amplified by Phil crowding into his space. But he likes the burn, doesn’t feel trapped by it, doesn’t want to shy away from it. “Probably shouldn’t have slept in this,” Dan says as he pushes himself up further, sitting up against the headboard and pinching a bit of the fabric at his chest to stop it clinging to his skin. He’s got two layers on still—his own tee shirt under Phil’s hoodie—but despite the warmth, he doesn’t move to take it off. 

“Mm,” Phil hums, eyes flicking down, then back up again. “You look good in green,” he says softly. 

“I do?” Dan squints sleepily, then shakes his head. “You’re just taking the piss because I look like a sea monster right now, aren’t you?” Dan lifts a hand to pat down his unruly, curly hair. “I don’t suit color.” 

“No,” Phil says immediately, candid. He pushes his glasses up from where they’ve been slipping down his nose, bats away Dan’s hand and leans a little closer to adjust where the hood has twisted all around to the front of his neck in his sleep. “You look good in this,” he nods, letting his fingers linger around the sides of Dan’s neck as he fiddles with the fabric. 

“Yeah?” Dan asks, voice rasped with sleep—and something else, something more. 

He feels like he can’t breathe. He feels like there’s no moisture left in his godforsaken body, his tongue heavy and slow in his mouth. His dick—being an asshole—starts to get interested again as his eyes adjust to pick out the colors in Phil’s in the soft, low light of the room. 

The haze is so easy to slip back into, he wants to so badly. 

“Did I sleep through my alarm?” Dan asks suddenly, his voice far too loud as he comes back to reality—or, the distraction—of why the hell Phil just shook him awake. 

Phil frowns, that crease between his brows returning again as he sits back and takes his hands with him. Dan nearly wants to whine, whine like his big mouth isn’t the whole reason why Phil is pulling away. Phil chews at his bottom lip as he shakes his head. 

“Then, why…?” Dan asks slowly, trying to read the hesitant expression on Phil’s face. 

“It snowed.” 

“ _Oh?_ ” Dan turns his head to look out the window, but the shade is drawn. All he sees is the dim, grey-ish glow from between the cracks. 

“It snowed a lot,” Phil adds softly. 

Dan hums, pushing off the headboard and doing a little twist to crack his back, making soft little sounds of pleasure as he rolls the sleep from his neck in small crackles. Sitting up in bed now, he looks to Phil with eyes that are slightly more awake. 

“What are we talking about here?” he asks. 

“Like…” Phil runs a hand through his hair, trying to settle it back down on his forehead but only making it look messier— _sexier_ , but it’s far too early in the morning to get back into that. “They’ve put out an advisory. There’s alerts for the roads… trains,” he says hesitantly. 

“Oh,” Dan bites his lip, “that’s-” 

“I’m sure it’ll blow over.” Phil sits up straighter, looking towards the window on the other side of the room. “I don’t think they’ve cancelled anything yet, but they might,” he looks back to Dan, “might push your train to the afternoon, or something.” 

“Hm. There could be worse things,” Dan decides after a moment. And there’s a good chance he actually means it. “Are you- Should I-” Dan bites his lip, shaking his head a little as he tries to form a coherent thought. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t really want to ask this at all. But he has to, has to make sure he’s at least trying to not be as big of a burden as he feels. “Should I clear out, then? See if the power’s back at mine?” 

“No,” Phil says immediately, an air of finality in his tone. “Not in this. You stay safe here while we wait and see where the day is going, alright?” His head tilts to the side as he keeps Dan’s gaze, his hand finding his knee over the covers and squeezing. 

Dan didn’t want to go anyway. 

“Yeah,” Dan nods. “Thanks Phil. I’m sure this isn’t how you thought your morning would go,” he says with a huff of a laugh, looking down at his lap. 

“I’m just glad you’re here,” Phil says softly, squeezes Dan’s knee one more time before pulling away. “I’m waiting for John to wake up to see if he still wants me to open,” he says as he stands up, the bed shifting ever so slightly in his absence, “but I doubt he will. If you want to come sit in front of the telly with me, I don’t think I can go back to sleep.” Dan watches as Phil fiddles with his hands, fingers all tangled up in each other as he stands beside the bed. “I can wake you up again if there’s any updates if you want to go back to sleep though.” 

“No, no.” Dan pushes himself up fully with a huff and a groan, tossing his feet over the edge. “I’m up now, Mum will probably be ringing frantically soon anyway.” 

“You want a coffee?” Phil asks, hovering, waiting as Dan wakes the rest of his body up, stretching with a loud yawn when he’s on two feet. There’s something about it that Dan loves. Loves the way he catches Phil’s wandering eye when he feels cool air at his exposed hip. Loves the way he doesn’t seem to want to make the short journey down the hall without him. 

“Uh, always,” Dan smiles, knocking his shoulder into Phil’s as they both try to step through the door at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay bear with me buds we are really trying to finish this thing by christmas !!!! so if u see me again with the next chapter in like 8 hours in the middle of the night just pretend like i'm not losing my absolute mind ok?? ok :)


	17. Chapter 17

“Fucking hell.”

Dan makes a beeline to the door that leads out to Phil’s balcony, nearly tripping over the coffee table as his wide eyes are glued to the window—honestly unable to believe what he’s seeing. He presses his hand to the glass as he peers out, instantly regretting it with a soft hiss at the cold. It’s so frozen he’s surprised it doesn’t just get stuck, like he’s just shoved his hand in a bag of ice and pulled out a handful that has to be shaken free. 

“I said it was a lot,” Phil replies, louder than before from somewhere behind him, like they’ve exited whatever invisible bubble that was surrounding Phil’s room and keeping their tones hushed.

Dan pulls his gaze away to look over his shoulder, appreciating the way he can still see most of Phil puttering about in his kitchen on the other side of the room. 

“Yeah, but… this is like-” Dan waves his hand around in the air, even though Phil has his back to him, filling his kettle at the tap. 

“Snowmageddon,” Phil doesn’t miss a beat, his laughter all low and drenched in sleep as he clicks on the water and turns around to lean against the breakfast bar. Even from across the room, his icy eyes shine in the soft grey light that’s just barely filling the space as he looks past Dan and out the window. 

Dan is quick to follow his gaze. The unreal feeling of the way the natural light bounces around the room, the very air around them, is far too dangerous to be spending any lengths of time looking into Phil’s eyes. Dan doesn’t trust himself with it at all. 

There’s something about a snow day. Maybe it’s just that ingrained feeling of magic, of relief, waking up in the early hours and peering out the window as he’s told he doesn’t have to go to school. It makes the air feel different, like you’re allowed to live in some alternate universe just for the day—where you’re encouraged to stay tucked in all warm, then go out and play. He reckons it fades in adulthood, that feeling, but it seems he hasn’t quite outgrown it just yet. 

It bubbles up inside him as he looks back out the window, one step away from pressing his nose against the glass. The sun is nowhere to be seen and the sky is a dark, stormy grey, but the city below is bright. 

Everything—absolutely everything—is covered in white. 

Dan has never seen the city in such a standstill. No ant people or toy cars about on the streets below. No sounds at all, really—just the faint whispering of the whipping wind as snow continues to fall, even quieter than the low volume of the news flashing on the television just behind him, and the soft rolling of the water boiling from the kitchen. 

What shocks him the most, is when he looks down, not out. The snow has clearly dusted the city in a layer of white, but he’s unable to process just how surmountable it is until he’s looking at his bare toes—feeling the slight draft against them despite not being pressed up against the glass at all. The snow on Phil’s balcony comes nearly halfway up Dan’s calf, all packed in and pressed up against the glass like it’s trying to come into the warmth. 

It would, too. Dan’s sure there’d be something of a small avalanche onto Phil’s carpet if he slid open the door. He wonders if it would be possible, actually, to even get the door open, or if it’s as frozen as it looks—suddenly feeling that pressing weight of being _trapped_ for the first time. His breath catches, stutters with his heart as he takes a small, instinctual step back. 

Perhaps the magic is beginning to wear off already. 

Not for Phil, it seems, the quiet hum of something that sounds an awful lot like _We’re Walking in the Air_ slowly getting louder until he’s right in Dan’s ear, stepping up next to him. Their fingers brush as he passes off one of the steaming mugs in his hands, and Dan nearly drops it with the kick start it gives his already rapidly beating heart. 

“Hot,” Dan says weakly, acts like it’s the mug’s fault and not his own, with red on his cheeks that definitely isn’t from the slow rising, fragrant steam of the mug cupped in his hands. 

Phil hums over the rim of his own mug, clearly no regard for the temperature as he sips it without caution. The lenses of his glasses start to fog as he stares out the window, intently watching the snow whip around—Dan taking in a different view. 

They stand like that for a while, in the quiet of an early morning snowstorm. Phil beside him, a crease in his brow, but wonder in his eyes. Dan sneaking incredibly transparent glances as his mug slowly empties, caffeine starting to run through his veins. 

“Looks like a snow globe,” Phil declares, looking to the side and catching Dan with a smirk. Dan feels the warmth at his cheeks, but doesn’t look away. He laughs gently, actually, the sound nothing more than a rumble and a dimpled smile as he gets a proper look at Phil’s fogged up glasses. 

“You look ridiculous,” he says, smile refusing to leave his face. 

“Wha- _oh_.” Phil’s expression goes from pouty to squinty as he pulls his glasses off with one hand, struggling a bit to wipe them against his shirt at his hip until Dan huffs and relieves him of his coffee mug so he can properly fix them. “Well you look like… your mum,” Phil says as he brings them back up, squinting at them before sliding them back on his face. 

Dan rolls his eyes as he hands Phil his mug. “Sure hope I do.” 

“Oh shut up,” Phil says softly, kicking his socked toe against the side of Dan’s foot. 

“You started it,” Dan shoots it right back, smiling as he lifts his mug to his mouth. 

“No, that was you!” 

“Hmm, don’t think so.” It’s hard to contain his splitting grin, so he doesn’t—smiles like the idiot he is as he looks back out the window. “When’s it supposed to stop?” he asks. As the hidden sun slowly starts to rise—the sky remaining a soft grey—it really looks like there’s no end in sight. 

“No clue,” Phil says, making an awfully cute little whining sound as he straightens himself up and stretches.

“Haven’t checked for updates since I woke you up,” he yawns, making his way towards the sofa. He sets his mug down and falls back into the cushions with the remote and the box of Crunchy Nut he had open on the coffee table. He turns up the news, pushing his glasses further up his nose with one hand while the other starts crinkling in the box of cereal—his eyes glued to the television as he shoves a handful into his mouth. 

It’s so… Dan shakes his head, stepping away from the outside world and plopping down on the sofa beside Phil. His heart _definitely_ shouldn’t be swooping the way it is, and he definitely shouldn’t be leaning towards the center of the sofa, leaving a sizable empty gap of space at the other end just so he’s all pushed up beside Phil.

For the cereal of course. So he can also shove his hand into the box resting in the middle of Phil’s folded legs. That’s all. 

The whole city is, quite literally, shut down.

Words like unparalleled and unforeseen bounce from news anchor, to weatherman, to news anchor while Dan and Phil crunch on dry cereal and share uncertain looks. The advisories don’t stay the same, they get worse, actually, as the storm rages on. The roads are too bad, unmanageable with the lack of preparation and the sheer volume of snow. The tracks are too buried, too icy, and only getting worse. And every few minutes more flights are being grounded. 

Two days before Christmas, and all travel has halted. It’s so bizarre it almost doesn’t seem real. 

But Phil is real beside him—his warm leg pressed up against his thigh, his fingers getting all mixed up with Dan’s when they reach for the Crunchy Nut at the same time. And the way he’s gnawing at his bottom lip between mouthfuls of cereal, a permanent frown starting to form at his forehead. 

Where Dan watches the cancelled trains flick at the bottom of the screen with something of budding… _relief,_ Phil just looks worried. He looks sad. 

Dan wants to say something, anything, to comfort him—reassure him that they’ll clear up the streets when the weather breaks, that he doesn’t have to worry about getting home. He knows that’s important to Phil. He knows that’s the worry sitting heavy on his shoulders without him having to say a word. 

And that’s why he comes up short, because he can’t bring himself to tell Phil anything that he doesn’t feel is true. 

Right now, it’s really not looking good for either of them. 

“Do you want another coffee?” Dan settles on, starting to shift to get up as he glances over to Phil—now biting at the edge of his thumb. 

Phil blinks a few times, seems to come back into himself when he peels his eyes from the screen. His eyes are a little unfocused as he looks back to Dan, but he gives him a slight smile. 

“Yeah, thanks. Left the tin out, I think.” 

“ _God_ , I’ve been drinking instant, haven’t I?” Dan groans as he stands, bending over to grab both of their empty mugs. 

That, at least, earns a genuine laugh from Phil. 

While the water heats again, Dan decides it’s as good a time as any to retrieve his phone from Phil’s room. He makes a pit stop to pee and look at his reflection in horror—the curls on his head out in full force, and he dials his mum as he pads back into the kitchen. 

“Dan?” 

“Hi,” Dan says, keeping his voice low, his phone shoved between his ear and shoulder as he starts to peel up the lid of the coffee tin. He doesn't know why she always answers the phone like this to him, when she knows it’s him who’s calling, but some things never change. 

Residual guilt he guesses. A refusal to accept that he’s just not going to be the type to constantly be calling home. Home, which always sounds like the wrong word to be using. 

“You’ve got service on the train, then?” she asks, says it like there’s not a million tons of snow on the ground. 

“Mum…” 

“What? Oh my- _Daniel_ , you didn’t miss your train again, did you?”

Dan shoves the teaspoon he just picked up into the tin of coffee and steps back from it, lifting a hand to hold his phone properly—and the other to massage at the bridge of his nose. He sighs, deep, leaning against the edge of the breakfast bar. 

“Have you not, like, _looked_ outside?” he asks, trying, and failing, to contain the annoyance in his tone. He can’t help it—or maybe he could, maybe he chooses not to. But he, at least, thinks it’s warranted. 

“We’ve just got up-” There’s the familiar slide of those clanky curtain rings above his mum’s kitchen sink over the phone, then, “ _Oh!_ A bit of snow, then.” 

“A _bit_ ,” Dan shakes his head, “Mum, they’ve got the whole city shut down here. It’s definitely more than just a bit.” 

She hums over the line, and Dan can hear the soft shuffling of her moving about the room, cupboards opening and water running. “We weren’t expecting that, were we? Guess it’s coming our way?” 

Dan _mhm_ ’s and _uh-huh_ ’s as he lets his phone settle back into the crook of his shoulder, giving up on being melodramatic against the breakfast bar and scooping coffee into each of their mugs. 

“You’ll just have to keep me updated, yeah? They’re usually good about that, trains in the snow you know?” He doesn’t, but he hums in agreement anyway, clanking the teaspoon against Phil’s coffee after dumping an illegal amount of sugar in it. His mum’s coffee machine chimes softly in the distance as she continues on in his ear. 

“We could think about coming to get you-” 

“Mum, that’s too far and the roads are shit right now.” 

“I don’t mean _now_ , Daniel. Worst case scenario, if the roads start looking better before they get the trains running. I don’t want you spending Christmas alone.” 

“I’m not-” Dan shakes his head, tosses the spoon in Phil’s sink and holds his phone properly again, looking across the room to the figure staring intently at the television. “I’m not alone. For now, at least.” 

He doesn’t realize he’s digging himself into a hole until he’s up to his waist in it. 

“Oh, you’ve got a flatmate still around then? That’s good-” 

“No, I’m, uh, at a mate’s.” 

“Oh…” Her tone is more questioning, but Dan doesn’t let her lean into it. Doesn’t know why he didn’t just follow along and slip in a lie, it’s not like it matters anyway. 

“So I’ll ring you if there’s any updates, yeah?” he says, starting to tap his free hand against the side of one of the mugs—impatient. 

And with a _stay safe_ and a couple of _love you_ ’s, Dan locks his phone and slips it into his front pocket, taking a large gulp from his mug to stave off any looming headaches before he carries them both back to the sofa. 

Phil takes his gratefully, with grabby hands and eyes that look at him brighter than they do the news.

The box of cereal now sits empty on its side on the coffee table, and Dan takes one more sip of his coffee before his mug joins it—settling back into the cushions without, his stomach starting to feel a little sour. 

Phil is catching him up, saying something about how this hour’s weatherman is a little fit in a _dad-gone-midlife crisis surfer_ kind of way, and Dan hums in agreement—humors him despite that not being his type _at all_. It’s nice, as Phil’s voice curls around his ears, that he can pick out the little good things to break up all the doom. The kinda fit weatherman, that one advert with the dogs that keeps playing, the hilariously unfortunate headline typo as a poor field reporter is: **Reporting Live From The Dicks**.

“He’s getting blown about by the dicks,” Phil points out excitedly, watching intently as the guy tries to stay upright in the wind and snow. Dan chuckles softly beside him, finding his eyelids heavy despite the comedy gold on the screen in front of them. 

“You are a child,” he says sleepily, leaning over to shove at Phil’s knee and not really finding the energy to lean back into his own space. 

“Shh!” Phil flaps a hand around, paying no mind to Dan pressing against his side. “I’m invested in the dicks now.” 

“‘Course you are,” Dan mumbles through a yawn, his eyes slipping shut. 

Phil keeps going. The words spoken in a low voice are lost as Dan slips further and further, lulled to sleep by the soft vibration of Phil and his dick talk. 

All things considered, Dan’s glad that _this_ is where he got stuck.


	18. Chapter 18

“Happy Christmas Eve Eve to you too.” 

Dan stirs to the hushed voice coming from… _above_? A soft noise of confusion leaves his throat, his cheek pressing further in the soft warmth of whatever it’s pressed against. 

“Oh no. I’ve been up, I just- Dan’s asleep right now.”

Dan stops his eyes from instantly snapping open, stops all of his small, waking up movements as he becomes starkly aware of the hand running gently through his hair. He tries to steady his breathing, feign sleep as Phil twists a finger around the same curl over and over. 

It’s Phil’s lap he’s using as a pillow. The softness against his cheek is his thigh. He barely remembers falling asleep, never mind how he got _here._

“Dan,” Phil’s hushed voice says again, almost making him think he’s been caught out, but he can just faintly hear the muffled voice talking to him on the other line. 

Phil hums. “No.” His fingers pause in Dan’s curls, voice sounding sad. “No, he’s not,” he says even softer. “Yeah, no. It’s alright.” Dan wishes he had the other end of the conversation, wishes he could understand why he stops, then starts to run his fingers through his hair again, scratching softly as he hums and gives a few short answers to questions Dan doesn’t know. 

He teeters on the edge of awake and asleep as he tries to listen, Phil playing with his hair keeping him drifting. 

He gathers that he’s on the phone with his parents, hearing a few _mum_ ’s and _dad_ ’s thrown around between retellings of what they’ve been hearing on the news all morning. It’s still snowing. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to confirm, can hear it in Phil’s voice. It makes his heart ache—makes him want to curl up into himself further, bringing Phil right with him—hearing the disappointment, the slight break in his voice. 

“I know, I will.” Phil’s finger tugs on Dan’s hair, probably getting stuck in the absolute mess of it, but Dan still doesn’t stir. He doesn’t want to leave whatever this is. 

“Of course I’ll tell him.” Dan can hear the eye roll in his voice, nearly snorts at it. “Love you too. Okay. Bye.” 

There’s a long sigh, and the hand in Dan’s hair disappears, Phil carefully shifting underneath him as he stretches back against the sofa. 

Dan reckons his little Phil cuddle scam has gone on long enough, making a show of stirring and stretching out as well. His knees make a small pop as he stretches his legs out like a dozing cat, and he loses any and all appeal he could possibly have when he kicks at the other end of the sofa, snorting loudly as he realizes it’s too short for him to fully extend. 

“Morning sleeping beauty,” Phil huffs out a laugh from above him. “Sorry if I woke you.” 

“Mm, was awake.”

“ _You-”_

Dan cuts him off with a snort. “What are you telling me?” Dan asks as he shifts, rolling onto his back, not bothering to leave Phil’s lap. “I’m assuming I’m the him,” he says, smirking up at—Dan’s breath catches— _alarmingly_ soft eyes. 

“You are,” Phil doesn’t seem phased, continues to look down at Dan like he’s actually something worth looking at—and not just the absolute sleep rumpled mess of a human that he is. “How much of that did you hear?” 

“Most of it,” Dan answers truthfully. “Whatever you said.” 

“Oh he’s nosy,” Phil laughs, ruffling his fingers through Dan’s hair. 

“Stoop it!” Dan reaches up, tries to fight back without pushing Phil away at all as they both shake with laughter—Phil getting his hand stuck in Dan’s hair again and Dan only pushing himself up from Phil’s lap to fuck with _his_ hair in retaliation. 

“This is abuse!” Phil says through giggles, leaning his head into Dan’s hand as he pushes the soft bits of black up in every direction. “Treason!” 

“ _Treason?!”_ Dan lets out a loud cackle, mostly unable to stop the noises coming out of him or his actions. But how could he even fathom stopping when it’s eliciting such beautiful noises from Phil—his loud, unrestrained laughter bouncing around the walls of the flat and settling warm in the center of Dan’s chest. "You aren't the bloody Queen!" 

“I am going to _pee_ on you!” Phil threatens, his smile wide and his eyes full of… _evil._

“Woah, woah.” Dan holds his hands up, leaning back from where he’s half sat in Phil’s lap—only just now questioning how he got there in the heat of the moment. “Okay, truce,” he says, untangling himself from Phil and flopping backwards against the sofa with a breathless huff. 

“Interesting to know you draw the line at pee,” Phil says, equally short of breath, his hand squeezing around Dan’s ankle. 

Dan gives him a little halfhearted kick, pushes himself up to properly look at Phil. “Well it sounded like you weren’t just-” 

“Don’t say it-” 

“-taking the piss.” 

Phil groans, smacking at Dan’s legs as the room- _the whole goddamned city_ is filled with the loudest wheezy cackle ever heard by the human ear. 

“It’s not even that funny,” Phil manages to get out, pushing up his glasses so he can wipe at his teary eyes. 

“No it’s really not,” Dan agrees, clutching at his aching sides. 

Phil looks over at him, all squinty with his glasses on his forehead and half a mohawk on his head from Dan’s antics. “You think we’ve lost it?” he asks. 

Dan nods solemnly, doing a very shit job at biting back his grin. “I think we’ve lost it,” he agrees, flopping back and looking up at the ceiling with a deep sigh. 

“I really do have to pee,” Phil says quietly, after a moment. 

“Well don’t do it on me!” Dan kicks at the fleshy bit of Phil’s thigh until he gets up, his laughter following him all the way to the bathroom. 

“You missed the on-air apology they had to make for the dicks.” Dan looks up from his lazy scrolling of his phone, Phil stepping back in the room with a nod to the television—news still on. 

Dan huffs out a laugh. “Am I going to have to take this away from you?” He gestures to the screen with the hand his phone is in. 

“You probably should, actually.” Phil plops down on the sofa unceremoniously, giving Dan a little jostle. “Think it’s rotting my brain,” he says, looking to Dan with a pout. 

Dan hums. “Well, what’s the verdict?” He locks his phone, sliding it back in his pocket and flopping his head to the side against the back of the sofa. “I really did only hear, like, thirty percent of your conversation.” 

That crease of a frown at Phil’s forehead returns as he gives Dan a play by play, telling him how he was meant to be on a bus to his parents’ directly from Space Cows after his shift—which was supposed to be about an hour’s time from now, but, of course, that is no longer the case. It isn’t far, Phil’s parents’, isn’t anywhere near similar to Dan’s trek down South, but it’s far enough that they have to heed the travel advisories. His mum had assured him they’ll make the drive to get him the second the roads are clear. Whenever that may be—it’s all up in the air. 

“You can come with me if the trains still aren’t running by then.” Phil reaches out, settling a hand on Dan’s leg just above his knee. Dan looks down at it, wondering how such a small touch can be felt throughout his whole body, and why he can’t just bring himself to simply place his own over it. He wants to. Phil would let him—he’d be an idiot to believe otherwise. But he’s terrified of the floodgates. There’s been so much pressure in his chest, desperate to be released over the past year, the fear and anticipation of it all have seemingly blinded him to the slow dripping cracks. 

Would it even be a flood at all? 

“You don’t-” Dan opens his mouth to protest, still feeling like he’s imposing despite Phil never showing anything of the sort, but Phil isn’t having it. 

“I’m not gonna leave you here,” he says like it’s the most ridiculous idea in the world, like the thought had never crossed his mind. “It’s easy enough to bring you back.” 

“That’s so out of the way.” Dan bites his lip, looking up at Phil with eyes he feels don’t deserve the look he’s getting in response. 

“It’s Christmas and you’re worth it.” Phil squeezes at his thigh. “Besides my mum will make me sleep outside in the snow if I leave you here,” he laughs, giving Dan a little shake. 

“Alright, alright,” Dan acquiesces, smiling softly and finally pressing his palm against the back of Phil’s hand—if only to stop him from jostling him around like he’s an amusement ride. 

“I don’t think it’ll come to that though,” Phil says, turning his head to glance out the window as his hand twists in Dan’s hold. He could drop it, could just play it off as any old friendly squeeze before placing Phil’s hand back in his own lap, but he doesn’t. 

“Yeah.” Dan slides his palm against Phil’s, slotting his fingers through the open invitation. “Let’s hope it passes quickly.” 

He almost appreciates the way Phil stays looking out the window—his only acknowledgement in meeting Dan the rest of the way, closing his fingers around his hand.

It isn’t scary. No portal to hell opens up in the middle of Phil’s floor. It’s just nice. Sitting on Phil’s sofa, holding on to something solid as the snow falls beyond the walls around them—Phil watching through the window, Dan watching on the screen—he gets that feeling in his chest. The one he’s afraid to lean into, afraid to get used to, but feels far too often lately to feasibly push away. 

It’s belonging, safety. And it feels like warmth in a snowstorm. 

_“We currently still do not have an estimate of when the conditions will-”_

Dan tunes back out of the droning news coverage, groans as he shifts and flexes his fingers around Phil’s—unsure how it can be so comfortable to hold someone’s hand for so long, but absolutely not questioning it. They just seem to _fit_ together. And if he starts to think about that too much he might end up spiraling. 

Morning has crept into the afternoon, the afternoon creeping into- whatever the fuck time it is. Hours both pass like minutes and days as he hears the same things over and over, his brain starting to feel slow cooked and goop-y in this weird limbo of a state. 

“This kind of feels like we’re just doom watching at this point,” he says, giving Phil’s hand a squeeze before loosening his grip and stretching his arms up over his head with a yawn. 

Phil rolls his neck, shifting around until his side is pressed up against the back of the sofa, looking at Dan with eyes that shine more grey than blue in the icy white glow of the room. 

“Yeah,” Phil glances towards the television screen, “not gonna do us any good as long as it’s still-” he makes a vague gesture to the window his back is to. “Do you want to watch a film or something? I’ve got Mario Kart,” he says, bounces his eyebrows in a way that makes Dan snort. 

Dan smiles, shaking his head—all fond. “Yeah, sure, that sounds good. Would you mind if I take a shower first though?” he asks, making the mistake of trying to run a hand through his out of control curls. “Feel proper rank from that nap and you did a number on my hair.” 

“It looks cute,” Phil pouts. 

Dan crosses his arms, huffing. “I look like an electrocuted sheep.”

“You can’t even see yourself!” 

“I just _know.”_

Phil rolls his eyes, leaning forward to shove at Dan’s arm as he’s trying to get up off the sofa, nearly sending him tumbling into the coffee table. 

“ _Evil.”_ Dan looks back to glare at him, the sentiment falling flat with his incredibly soft tone. 

Phil’s faux innocent smile is absolutely infectious. “There’s spare towels on the shelf behind the door.” 

“Stop looking at me like that,” Dan says with a lopsided smile and a little shake of his head. As if he has any basis to tease, considering he basically has a degree in stealing glances at Phil at this point.

They’ve both showered, Dan stupidly thinking the hot steam would somehow wipe clean the fog of _Phil_ in his brain. 

Even back in his own clothes, he’s enveloped in him. Phil’s shoulder pressing at his side and wet hair shook in his face as he whined about Dan _hacking_ Mario Kart—he wasn’t, he’s just very good, and Phil… is very easy to distract. Phil’s sweet body wash clinging to his skin, the familiar scent remaining close to him even as they gave up on the Wii and Phil flopped back on the other end of the couch, tossing his feet in Dan’s lap as they bickered over a show to watch. 

And Phil… Well Phil somehow _always_ already meeting Dan’s eye every time he looks away from the television screen. 

Phil’s eyes go wide, like he hadn’t even realized he was doing it himself. His eyebrows scrunch together as he looks away, pink high on his cheeks. 

Dan almost wishes he said nothing at all. But the warm feeling in his heart was starting to become all too much to handle. 

“Sorry, sorry. Was zoning out.” Phil’s voice is all low—deep and overwhelmingly northern in that way it gets whenever table sittings run long or Dan catches him at the shop after class halfway through an early morning shift. It really doesn’t do much for the warm feeling, besides adding a few bits of kindling—something about that tired huskiness really doing it for him. 

It’s not even that late, maybe only half six if Dan bothered to check the time on his phone, but time feels all wonky. 

Probably on account of both their early rises, the shock and stress and general uncertainty of the day sitting heavy on their shoulders. Dan feels it manifesting in exhaustion as well, staving off a few yawns as he zoned in and out of the flashing images on the telly. 

He feels something else though, deeper down, but he doesn’t want to dig to it. 

Dan huffs, jabs a finger at Phil’s calf. “I was starting to think that whole cannibal thing wasn’t all talk. Or, at least, you were rethinking—given this whole situation.” 

“This situation?” Phil looks back, cocking his head to the side. 

“Yeah, you know.” Dan waves a hand in the air. “Like, stranded in your apartment for the unforeseeable, debating how long that near empty fridge and two boxes of cereal will last you before the lame emo nerd you accidentally adopted starts looking like Christmas dinner.” 

Phil frowns. “Don’t say that!” 

“What? You’re saying you _wouldn’t_ eat me to survive?” 

“No comment,” Phil says quickly, the corner of his lip twitching up. Another something Dan wouldn’t be catching if not for his mild infatuation with watching the way they move as Phil speaks. “I meant the adopted thing,” he adds, scrunching his nose. “Don’t like that at all.” 

Dan merely lifts a brow. He can’t decide if he wants clarification or not—if his brain is going in the same direction as Phil’s. 

They can’t be. And if they were, those tracks are quite slippery. It’d be dangerous to keep that train going if so. He’s already let too much slip in the haze of the day. 

“You’re right,” Dan says anyway—because his resolve has seemingly been buried with the snow. “It does sound weird.” 

“Lame emo nerd you accidentally got stuck with,” Dan corrects after a moment. 

“I’m not stuck with you,” Phil says instantly, in a disarmingly soft tone. So much so, Dan can’t seem to do more than open his mouth a few times, looking for words his brain won’t let travel to his tongue. 

“I mean-” Phil shakes his head. The hair over his forehead falls out of place with the movement, going that bit askew that makes Dan want to reach over and fix—or maybe run his fingers through and ruffle up more, just to see that pouty, annoyed look on Phil’s face. 

He doesn’t, of course. 

“-I _am_ , technically, we are. But it doesn’t feel like stuck. That’s not the word I would use.” He looks over to Dan with a creased brow. “Like it’s not the best situation, but I wouldn’t want anyone else here but you. You know?” 

Oh. 

“Yeah,” Dan breathes, low like the word is punched right from his chest. It kind of was. He looks down at his lap, picking at a rogue string on his trackies while he wills the heat beneath his cheeks to simmer down. “Yeah,” he repeats in a whisper. “Me too.” 

“I’m also far more prepared than you’d think,” Phil says after a beat, his entire tone changing as he gives Dan’s knee a few nudges with his toes before pushing himself off the sofa. “Come on,” he holds out a hand to pull Dan up, “you hungry?” 

“Mostly always,” Dan says with a laugh, taking Phil’s hand. 

Phil’s eyes crinkle at the corner as he laughs. "Well let’s get your human flesh in the kitchen.” 

“I hate you,” Dan mutters, all fond as he tries so very hard to not hyper focus on the feeling of Phil’s soft hand wrapped around his—firm and impossible to ignore—tugging him towards his small kitchenette without a lick of grace. 

They very nearly both tumble over at the small indent in the flooring at the opening of the kitchen, and Dan’s honestly too distracted by the lingering feeling of warmth at his hand once Phil lets go to really take in anything he’s saying as he buzzes about the kitchen—opening cabinets and pulling out various non perishable items that he deems a part of his “ _natural disaster plan.”_

Five half-empty boxes of dried pasta, their respective selection of un-opened sauces, a tin of curry, and three whole bags of colorful mini marshmallows aren’t exactly what Dan would consider disaster prep, but he can’t really be one to judge. He doesn’t even want to think how fucked he would be if he got stuck at his own place. 

But he doesn’t have to, because he didn’t. He’s here—with Phil to take a bite out of if rations do get low. 

He’d really quite like to take a bite out of- 

“Okay, you’ll be properly proud of my adulting here,” Phil pulls Dan out of his thought, flinging open the freezer door and holding out his arms in a show. As if he’s revealing some supermodel in a speedo and not… a blast of cool air and a fair amount of freezer burn. 

Oh, and also far too many boxes of frozen pizzas to feasibly count. 

“Jesus Phil, what the fuck?” Dan’s brows are high on his forehead as he peers into the freezer. 

“Okay, so don’t shame me-”

“I might be shaming you,” Dan interrupts. 

Phil looks down at his feet, hanging his head in, _well_ , shame. 

“There was this Facebook post, right…” 

“Oh no.” 

“And it said you could make three thousand pounds, and all you had to do was buy two hundred pounds of frozen pizza…” 

“Oh _no_.” 

Phil looks up, scratching at the back of his neck as he leans against the fridge. His expression is meek as he says, “They never did tell me _how_ to get that three thousand pounds after I had bought all the pizza.”

Dan lets out a deep, dramatic sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose and biting back his exasperated smile. Phil is just full of… everything, really. But mostly surprises. So much shockingly endearing bullshit leaves his mouth that it really shouldn’t even surprise him anymore—and yet it still does. 

“You should’ve seen the look on the delivery guy’s face when he had to load up the entire elevator with pizza- Yeah!” Phil cuts himself off suddenly, pointing at Dan’s exasperated expression with bright eyes and a wide smile. “It looked something like that!” 

“Phil, that’s literally a pyramid scheme.” 

“It’s pizza!” Phil pouts. 

“A pizza pyramid scheme,” Dan corrects, chest full of laughter. “Oh my _god_.” He has to put out a steadying hand on the breakfast bar behind him so he doesn’t double over with it, loud cackles filling the flat as Phil huffs and closes the freezer door—taking the chill leaking out into the room with it. 

“Well,” Phil turns to Dan with his arms crossed, tilting his head ever so to the side, “at least I’m prepared now.” 

Dan shakes his head, entirely breathless with cheeks that are starting to ache. “You sure are.” 

Phil’s pouty expression cracks approximately two seconds into a staring contest, just the very tip of his tongue peeking out between his teeth as he smiles and his shoulders do a little shake of soundless laughter. His gaze flicks down to his feet, leaning back against the opposite counter. Dan feels pulled forward, like the space between them is suddenly far too much, but he doesn’t move a muscle. 

Phil looks back up, a neutral expression on his face as he lifts a hand to mess with his fringe a bit. They open their mouths at the same time. 

“So-”

“So-” 

Dan’s face heats, both of them immediately erupting into giggles—cracking the odd sense of tension Dan was feeling and making the air around him feel lighter. 

When they catch their breath, Dan leans back against the counter more casually, crossing his ankles. “What’s on tonight’s menu, pizza boy?” 

Surprisingly, they settle on pasta. Mostly because the grumbling in Phil’s stomach becomes audible as they squabble over the best pizza toppings for so long that Dan swears the cool air from the freezer is starting to ice over his eyebrows. They both decide a quick spaghetti and tomato sauce is the way to go once they realize how long Phil’s multi-level marking pizzas take to cook in the oven—not having the foresight to at least pre-heat it before they started the great toppings debate. 

Dan hops up on the breakfast bar while Phil fills the kettle, thinking it’s always best for him to be out of the way in the kitchen—and if he’s not supposed to sit on a surface, it shouldn’t have the perfect amount of Dan ass space clear and void of any objects. Phil lifts a brow, but doesn’t protest, so he slides himself back, resting his palms on the cool countertop and tapping his fingers to music that isn’t playing. 

“Should I be commentating like this is Iron Chef, or?” Phil says, turning to lean against the opposite counter with a smirk. 

Dan snorts. He shakes his head. “Best if I stay away from the open flame.” 

Phil cocks his head to the side. “Oh?” 

“Long story.” 

“We’ve got time.” 

There’s something about it. Maybe the way he says it, the glint in his eyes or the tug of his lips. Or perhaps it’s just the ease in exchanging his I’s for we’s. Whatever it is, it makes Dan’s heart speed up in his chest, threatening to shoot him right off the counter if he isn’t careful. He grips at the edge harder, leaning forward but not giving in to the pull. 

“You know my flatmate you met?” 

“Hazy,” Phil says with a huff of a laugh, “but yeah. Kevin? Calvin?” 

“Callum.” Dan rolls his eyes, trying to deflect from the way his cheeks heat at the snippets of drunken memories from the other day that his brain has allowed him to store. “Not important.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I think he started making extra pasta whenever he’s around to make dinner out of pity.” 

“Pity?” Phil asks, attentive even as he turns to transfer the boiling water to the stove. Dan watches the back of his head with a soft smile, appreciating the way he wiggles his hips while he pours one of the boxes into the pot. He gives it a quick stir and turns back around, arms crossed over his chest as he looks up at Dan. 

“Yeah, I like-” Dan shakes his head, looking down at his socked feet tapping against the cupboards so he doesn’t have to meet Phil’s eye. “No, never mind. You’ll make fun of me.” 

“Nooo,” Phil whines. “Tell me.” 

“I kind of like,” Dan lifts his hands to speak, but doesn’t look up—he’s more than aware of his blazing hot cheeks, “tried to make pasta?” He snorts. “But… forgot the water.” 

“You forgot the water?” Phil asks slowly, like he’s trying to process each word individually. 

Dan buries his head in his hands. “Yeah,” he groans into them. “I just- I don’t know.” He shakes his head as he wipes his hands down his face, finally looking up to fully face the embarrassment. 

“You know.” Dan gestures behind Phil. “Put the pasta in the pan and didn’t realize it needed water until the entire hall’s fire alarms were going off.” 

“Oh my god?” Phil, _actually,_ chokes a bit on his laugh, prompting Dan to hop off the counter despite his insistences that his airways are okay. 

“I’m not really allowed to get too creative in our kitchen now, even though it’s been a year,” Dan says, leaning his hip against the counter by the stove. “They don’t really let me live it down.” 

“Well.” Phil grabs another big spoon from the holder on the counter and holds it out between them. “First you have to boil the water,” he points it towards the pot, “then you-” 

“Phi-il,” Dan cuts him off, making his name two syllables with the whine in his voice. “I know how to make pasta _now.”_

Phil grins, all lopsided and nefarious. “Are you sure?” he asks. 

“Yes.” Dan rolls his eyes. 

“Okay.” Phil holds the spoon out again, this time passing off the torch. “Show me.” 

Dan takes it with a little shake of his head. “You just want me to make you dinner.” 

“Noooooo,” Phil says, all cheek, bumping his hip against Dan’s as he moves to stir the pot. 

The small space is quickly filled with giggles and shrieks and tomato sauce stains. Rolled eyes and gentle encouragement—Dan not feeling like he’s being teased whenever he looks over to Phil to check he’s doing something right. 

It’s simple, just boiling pasta and heating a pre-made sauce, but Phil doesn’t once make him feel as embarrassed as he probably should be. 

_Hell,_ he starts to think that maybe learning how to cook more than microwaved noodles and toasted bread wouldn’t be all that bad if it was always like this. 

Dan finds himself falling and falling-

“Wait!” Phil shocks him out of his thoughts, stopping him mid-scoop from the boiling water with a hand on his wrist, the cooked pasta steaming the air between them. 

“Wot?” 

“You don’t just pull it out,” Phil lowers Dan’s hand, and he lets the pasta drop back into the water, “you have to rinse off the sand!” 

Phil may be void of teasing, but Dan is not.

He lifts a brow, an expression of disbelief on his face as he steps away from the stove and crosses his arms, watching Phil crouch down. “The _sand?_ Did the pasta take a tropical holiday I wasn’t aware of?” 

“Uhhhhh,” Phil hums from somewhere deep in a lower cupboard, rattling and banging a few things around before he pops back up like a meerkat. Dan just watches in amusement as he sets the colander he procured in the sink, picking up the pot and dumping its contents over it. He’s quite interested in hearing what Phil thinks this sand might be. 

It comes to him when he’s shaking the colander around under the tap. “Starch!” Phil says as he turns off the tap. He looks well proud of himself as he says it, looking to Dan with a big smile as he gives the pasta one last tap. “You have to rinse the starch,” he clarifies. 

Dan takes the pasta from him with a little shake of his head. “The _sand_ ,” he teases, scooping it out into the heated sauce on the stove. 

Phil watches over his shoulder, bumps his hip against Dan’s at his words. “Shut up… fire noodle boy.” 

“Fire noodle boy?” Dan lifts a brow as he stirs the pot. 

“My next D&D NPC,” Phil answers easily with a shrug. Dan snorts, finding himself in a near constant state of shaking his head. Despite its historical context, all he’s really saying is _more more more._

Of course, Phil gives him exactly what he needs. 

“He’s got, like, noodly arms that can spark flames,” Phil moves about the kitchen, miming flourishes far too big for how long and clumsy his limbs are, “and big brown eyes that match his brown fringe-” 

“Shut up!” It’s probably the fondest he’s ever sounded, his cheeks as red as the sauce he’s staring down at. “You’re getting _too_ brave for the guy not holding the spoon of eternal stains,” he warns, brandishing said utensil as he looks up at Phil. 

Phil, who is somehow far closer than Dan had thought. He’s right in poking distance, Dan nearly _actually_ smacking him in the chest with the saucy spoon. Phil is completely unfazed by that, apparently, despite the light tee shirt he’s got on. He grabs the spoon out of Dan’s hand and pokes his nose with it, leaving Dan saucy and spluttering as he takes over to serve their pasta. 

Behind them, the snow still falls. Dan has tomato sauce on the tip of his nose, and his best friend has his heart in his hands. 

All he can really do is go along with it. 

Phil digs out a bottle of wine, something sweet and light he says he forgot he had, and sets up Gremlins on the television with claims that it’s the, _“Best Christmas movie of all time, Dan.”_

As Dan twirls spaghetti on his fork, watching the twinkling lights of Phil’s Christmas tree reflect and dance against the side of his wine glass on the coffee table, Phil laughs all breathy beside him, occasionally nudging at his side. 

“This is my favorite bit,” he tells him, for the sixth or seventh time—the whole damn thing really being his favorite bit. 

Dan laughs, nods along. “Oh yeah?” Phil doesn’t look away from the movie as Dan takes it in from his eyes, the expressions on his face. 

_This_ is his favorite bit, he decides—thinks any Christmas movie could be his favorite if he’s watching it like this. 

They find themselves on the floor not long after the credits roll. Every light and screen is flicked off—save for the Christmas tree beside them—as they rub at their stomachs. Full of pasta, wine, and uncertainty they stare out at the city, sharing soft grumbles and bets on when they think the snow will stop. 

Phil gives a moderate guess of 2020, theorizing how floating space cars will finally be invented in response to entire cities being buried in the snow. Dan humors him, tries to go for a sarcastic remark about that being a _lot_ of Christmases for them to spend together, but it settles heavier in the air than he intends. 

A decade from now is far too much for his wine soaked brain to comprehend. It’s hard enough to imagine what lies in the near future, when the snow does stop and the roads are cleared. What exactly _is_ the normal he wants to go back to? And why would he much rather just lie here—watching the icy blues and whites on Phil’s skin as he lifts a hand to flick at one of the bottom branches of his tree. 

“Where do you think you’ll be, then, if we’re not still buried in the snow?” Dan asks, apparently chasing that feeling he wants to run from. 

Phil chuckles, leaving the tree to bounce as he rolls off his back to face Dan on his side, propping his head up in his hand. “Going existential?” 

“It’s like you don’t even know me at all,” Dan huffs sarcastically. 

“I don’t know,” Phil says after a moment. “That’s a lot to think about.” 

“Kind of spooky,” Dan says. 

Phil nods. “Super spooky.” Dan watches intently as Phil bites at his bottom lip, eyes narrowed like he actually is trying to come up with an answer to such an impossible question. He wants to lift his hand from where it’s resting on his stomach, reach out and try to smooth the crease between Phil’s brows. 

But the idea is wiped from his mind before he can even lift a finger, Dan catching Phil’s gaze flick down, his own following it to watch his tongue swipe across his lip before he opens his mouth. 

“I want-” Phil says slowly, stopping to breathe in sharp, eyes flicking between Dan’s before he lets it out in a sigh.

In a sudden movement, he flops back on his back, tossing an arm over his eyes. “I want PJ to let me DM.” 

_“God.”_ Dan does move his liquid bones this time, shoving at Phil’s shoulder. “You’re such a troll.” 

“I’m not trolling,” Phil laughs, batting away Dan’s hands. He does a quite a shit job at it with the way he stays holding onto his wrist, their hands tangling on Phil’s chest—though Dan’s not going to complain. 

“So your big dream for a decade from now is replacing PJ’s cardboard dragons for what… _sexier dragons-”_

“Sexier dragons,” Phil nods, repeating Dan’s words before they’ve even left his mouth.

“Okay maybe not _decade_ , but, like, next year,” Phil says. He’s playing with Dan’s fingers now, got his hand in both of his just folding and bending them like he’s one of those bendy mannequins that people use to draw anatomy. “I’ve been writing a campaign for a while now, or, well, I was writing a campaign. It’s more like- I don’t even know what it is now.” 

It tickles as Phil starts to draw invisible lines in the center of his palm, and Dan’s soft breathy laughs make the corner of his mouth twitch up. They let the room fall quiet as he makes his little loops and swirls, everything feeling slow, languid—like it really just is the two of them, the rest of the world falling away. 

Dan wiggles his pinky finger at Phil, eliciting a little huff. “Tell me about it,” he says. 

And he does. A whole new world opens up before him after Phil crawls over to the TV stand and drops a well-worn composition book onto his chest, Dan sitting up and flicking through it. 

“You can read it,” he says. “I got too into the characters and detail, I don’t think it’s even possible to use it as a campaign now, so it doesn’t matter.” 

“Holy shit Phil,” Dan says as he flips through the pages, his eyes scanning every last detail as Phil wrings his fingers together in his lap where he’s sat criss-cross beside him. “This is like, a whole graphic novel, or something.” 

Phil laughs, shaking his head. 

“No,” Dan stops him before he even gets his mouth open to protest, “this is _good,”_ he says, giving the notebook a little shake in his hands for emphasis. 

“It’s really not like, anything though,” Phil says, taking the notebook from Dan and flipping through it himself with his lip caught between his teeth. “It’s not a campaign anymore, but what else could it be? It’s too weird, you know? I had a thought about film, how it could translate to a show or some sort of video where the viewer could make the decisions. Like the spirit of playing D&D, but I get to keep all my fleshed out characters. But that’s way too ambitious. Who even wants choose your own adventure novels, or, like, comics anymore?” 

“I do,” Dan says instantly, making grabby hands to take it back. “That’s like the coolest fucking idea, Phil.”

“It wouldn’t work. It’s just something fun, not anything really,” Phil repeats, flipping it closed and setting it on the floor next to his thigh. 

“I think it’s something,” Dan hums, daring to reach over and settle a hand on Phil’s knee. 

Phil looks up at him with wide eyes. “You do?” 

“Yes, idiot,” Dan smiles. “Were you even listening to me?” 

“Ehhhhh.” A small smile starts to creep up Phil’s face. 

“God, I’m gonna, like, fight you.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, here I come with my massive fists.” 

“Oh, Dan!” Phil calls out, all innocent. “Don’t fist me!” 

“Christ, Phil. I’m really going to fight you now,” Dan says, tackling Phil back against the carpet—the flat filling with screams and shrieks of laughter as a completely warranted tickle fight breaks out. 

“Okay FINE!” Phil wheezes. “It’s good! I made a thing and it’s good! Dan- please,” he pants, “I literally can’t breathe.”

Dan sits up, his wiggly fingers retreating from Phil’s sides, shaking with laughter and lack of air. A victorious grin sits on his face. “That’s all I needed to hear.” 

The snow still falls, captured in snapshots as it passes over the city lights in the dark of the night, Dan watching it get blown all around from his perch on Phil’s lap, the two of them still catching their breath. 

He breathes in sharp when he feels a hand at his side, a rogue finger slipping between the hem of his loose tee and the band of his joggers—a ghost of a touch against warm skin. He sighs into it, eyes following the fluttery bits of snow as he’s slowly set on fire. It’s a good burn, building in the gentle brushes of skin against skin, Dan content to let it engulf him whole. 

“Hey Phil?” Dan breaks through the trance, daring a glance down and finding he’s somehow able to fall so much further. Black hair is all splayed out against the carpet, sharp features have gone soft, and the half-lidded blue that looks up at him may very well be his new favorite color.

The thumb at his hip pauses, presses into his hip and stays there as Phil makes a soft grunt of a noise in response. 

“Since it seems like we’re staying put another night, it’s probably best for your spine for you to get your bed back.” 

Yeah, _very_ smooth Dan. 

“You’re taller than me, I don’t want you to have to-” 

“Wait wait, hold on.” Dan smiles wide. “We’ll circle back in a second, just- can you say that again?”

Phil furrows his brows further, jostling Dan a little as he pushes up on his elbows. “I don’t think it’s fair for you to sleep on the sofa?” he says slowly, tilting his head to the side. 

Dan shakes his head, biting hard on his lip to stop his shit-eating grin, “No no, the other thing.” 

“You’re-” Phil’s eyes go wide, stopping himself. His hand disappears from Dan’s side, slapping against his mouth instead. He shakes his head, something that sounds like a muffled, _“Uh-uh,”_ coming from beneath his hands as Dan barks out a laugh. 

“Too late!” Dan playfully jabs at his sides a little, causing him to drop his hands to wriggle out from underneath him. “You already admitted it!” 

“I take it back!” Phil yelps, jumping away from Dan’s grabby hand at his ankle as he pushes up off the floor.

“I’m a liar,” Phil says, dodging around the coffee table when Dan gets up as well—poised to chase him.

“I liiiiied,” he yells over Dan’s loud cackles, their feet thumping loud chasing each other around the flat. 

“You know,” Dan says, finally able to breathe again after doing twenty laps around Phil’s flat—ending up flopped, wheezy and tired, face first on Phil’s bed. Phil is in a similar starfish-like position beside him, their long heavy limbs all overlapping. “I was trying to suggest we sleep together.” 

_“Oh,”_ Phil says softly.

Then, after a moment of stark quiet, Phil says, “Good, because I am already asleep.” One of his hands pats around the bed, slapping against Dan’s back, then shoulder, until he finally locates the back of his head, patting it softly. “Goodnight, Dan,” Phil says, making a fake snore. 

“I hate you so much,” Dan says into the pillow. His cheeks absolutely ache from his grin.


	19. Chapter 19

Waking up enveloped in Phil, the distinct mix of his shampoo and detergent faintly clinging to the sheets his face is pressed into, is far too much of a tease when Dan rolls over, stretches out a hand, and there’s no Phil there. 

It’s far too much in general. Groggy memories of stirring in much earlier hours, warm, secure feelings of an arm slung across his chest, fill his brain. Settling into it, drifting back off to sleep with a hand peeking out of the warmth of the duvet to wrap around Phil’s, feels like a dream. Not reality in the slightest. 

It all feels like a dream—something liminal about the icy glow of the room as Dan blinks open his eyes and stretches out his limbs until they crack. The cause of the cooling warmth Dan’s rolled into is stood by the window, a shoulder leaning against its frame as Phil looks out to the white abyss. 

The bright, tight tee he wore to bed is all creased and rumpled, his pajama pants low on his hips. Dan finds himself desperate to run his fingers through the hair that’s sticking out in every direction at the back of his head—desperate to jump out of bed, desperate to pull Phil back in. 

“Is it still snowing?” he asks instead, voice low and raspy with disuse—and perhaps something else. 

Phil hums, turns to look over at Dan with his arms still crossed—his phone clutched in his hand at his bicep, knuckles as white as the snow. 

“Still snowing,” he confirms with a small frown. 

It does something horrible to his chest—Phil upset and Dan full of… relief. He’s always pushing off the inevitable, the things he’d rather avoid, and here he is now, mother nature doing it for him. But it’s at the cost of Phil. 

Phil with his glassy, sad eyes, his bottom lip starting to tremble more and more as he looks down at him. Phil who doesn’t deserve to spend Christmas snowed in. Phil who deserves the absolute world and so, so much more. 

And Dan who wishes he could give it to him, propped up on an elbow in his bed, not a word in his throat that could make up for the situation that they’re in. 

So he doesn’t go for words. 

Pushing up from the soft warmth with a small, involuntary groan, Dan makes the four steps to the window—Phil arms open before he even gets there. Dan shivers at the cool press of Phil’s phone in his hand at the back of his neck, the two of them slotting together in the quiet of an early morning snowstorm that’s become so much more. 

Phil makes his coffee perfectly, not too light or too dark, definitely not as sweet as his own. They’re quiet as he makes them, just their soft breathing, the occasional yawn, and the clinking of a teaspoon against ceramic. Phil passes off Dan’s coffee without a word, as if he’s just made it on autopilot, and Dan doesn’t know why he can feel heat in his chest without even taking a single sip. 

Phil flicks on the telly, volume nothing more than a murmur, and Dan finds a spot by the tree. He sets his mug down first, then stretches behind the tree to plug it in, settling on the gentle, slow pulsing setting that’s easy on the eyes. 

It is Christmas Eve after all, reckons it’s appropriate to turn the tree on in the brightness of the day.

There’s a soft hum of a, “Thanks,” from Phil on the sofa, and Dan picks up his coffee, looking out the big window with his knees to his chest. 

“So what’s the verdict?” Dan breaks through the hum of the news and the slight whistling of the wind he can hear from how close he is to the window. The last dredges of his coffee sit all sludgy in the bottom of the mug by his feet, his arms are resting over his knees, his head resting on his arms. He turns it to the side, blinking as his eyes adjust from the harsh brightness of the white out the window, his cheek pressing against his forearm and his unfocused eyes now looking at the tree and the flashing images on the screen. 

“Unless there’s a miracle, I don’t think we’re getting out of here anytime soon,” Phil says, flat, from the sofa. It’s followed by a long sigh and the clatter of him setting his mug down on the coffee table. 

Dan bites his tongue, making sure his questionable brain to mouth filter keeps any musings about miracles not being real from filling the air between them. Now really isn’t the time to be the pessimistic asshole he so often is. 

“I’m sorry Phil,” he manages to say, sincerely—he really is. There’s so much twisted up in his chest, so much conflict in his head. So much guilt and repression settled heavy on his shoulders, feeling like he’s been sat out in the snow letting it build up and up until it seems impossible to clear away. The only thing he can really say is sorry. 

A noise of protest leaves Phil’s throat. Then, feet padding across the carpet until Phil’s thunked down beside him. 

“What are you apologizing for?” Phil bumps his shoulder against Dan’s. Dan leans into it, doesn’t let himself get jostled into the tree, and Phil doesn’t pull away. 

“Dunno, just feel bad,” Dan says in a small voice, lifting his head from his arms to look back outside, to let it roll to the side, resting on Phil’s warm shoulder. The tightness starts to unravel. 

“Did you put a fork under your pillow?” 

Dan lifts his head, just barely, to look up at the side of Phil’s face with a squint. “Excuse me?” 

“You know,” Phil waves his hand in the air, “to make it snow.” 

Dan snorts, letting his head fall again. Phil’s pull is immediate, an arm around his waist tugging him closer against his side until he’s barely considered upright anymore. 

“I think that’s spoons. And no.” He can’t help but feel like he did cause this though, like too many weird coincidences have brought them here. The illogical explanation that Dan’s secret wishes of not having to go home for Christmas being the cause of this becoming entirely plausible. 

But Dan doesn’t believe in divine intervention. And even if he did, who’s to say he’s a fraction of important enough for the rest of the world to stop and wait for him. 

“Spooooons,” Phil says. His low tone hums against Dan’s cheek. “Weird word.” 

Dan just huffs, unable to stop the way the corner of his mouth twitches upwards. _Weird boy._

“We’ve just got to make the best of it,” Phil says after a moment of spoon contemplation. “It’s no one’s fault, we didn’t know it was coming, and unless you’ve got, like, an _anti_ freeze ray, all we can really do is wait it out. So don’t beat yourself up about it, yeah?” Phil squeezes at his side. Dan feels the grounding weight of his head dropping against his own. 

“At least you’re here,” Phil continues when Dan doesn’t respond. “Don’t know how I’d manage without my best friend,” he adds, quieter, softer. 

Dan freezes, his heart skipping over a beat or two as he actively has to stop himself from pulling away to look at Phil with wide, questioning eyes. The very last thing he wants to do is pull away, but he’s- He’s never heard that before. From Phil, from anyone, actually. 

“Best friend,” he repeats, though his inflection sounds more like a question. 

Phil plays with the hem of Dan’s shirt at his waist, warm fingers brushing against warmer skin. “Yeah, stupid.” 

“Hey,” Dan laughs lightly, trying to not sound as choked up as his tight throat is making him feel. “Thought that was PJ.” 

Phil hums. “He’s alright.” He shrugs, jostling Dan at his side a little, then pulls him even closer. “But obviously I don’t feel the same way about Peej as I do you.” 

It’s said like a simple fact. Like, the sky is grey and there’s snow outside and it’s Christmas Eve. Like it’s something that Phil really _believes._ And Dan doesn’t quite know how to breathe. 

Dan looks out at the snow, closes his eyes with white still behind his lids. 

“I’ve never had a proper best friend before,” he says. 

Phil’s fingers pause against his skin. “Until me?” he asks, his voice wavering slightly, less sure than before. Dan absolutely hates it. 

“Yeah, until you,” he says immediately, moving his hand between them to rest at Phil’s thigh, just above his knee. When he breathes in, Phil does as well, their bodies rising and falling in an exhale that melts some of the snow on his shoulders. 

“I have a chair out there, actually, I like to sit with my coffee sometimes,” Phil says after Dan hums something about it being nice to have a balcony so high up—just the two of them filling the room with quiet chatter as the snow continues to fall just outside the glass before them. “And some well crispy plants. Do you reckon the snow is, like, watering them?” 

Dan huffs a laugh into Phil’s shoulder before looking back out to his small balcony. The snow has made the entire thing just a mere suggestion of shapes, a big lump to the right corner, a few smaller lumps lined up against the railing. 

“Mate, I don’t think any living thing is surviving that.” 

A pathetic little whine leaves Phil’s throat.

“They were dead to begin with,” he says in a sad whisper. Dan pats at his knee. 

“We have roof access, apparently,” Dan says, clearing his throat. “Adam takes his coffee, or protein shakes, or whatever up there, says it’s nice but it’s like a million fucking stairs so I’d rather die,” he snorts. “He’s got, like, a _thing_ for all that. Exercise,” Dan fake gags, scrunching up his face. 

Phil chuckles. “Is that a thing? An exercise kink?” 

Dan splutters, choking on his laugh. “I do _not_ want to know. Let me live in blissful ignorance of all those weird kinks.” 

“Only the normal ones?” Phil rocks to the side, somehow finding a way to teasingly nudge at Dan’s shoulder while they’re fused at their sides. 

“Yeah, totally,” Dan laughs, voice thick with sarcasm. 

“Like furries,” Phil says, high and… smug. Dan shoves at his knee, dipping with him as it jostles him away, Phil’s firm hand at his side not letting either of them stray far. 

“You’re projecting,” Dan says, unable to bite back his grin. 

Phil pinches at his side, eliciting a little yelp. “Am I?” 

Dan rolls his eyes out to the snow. The slight draft of the window is barely even noticeable anymore. 

“Have you ever played in the snow before?” Phil asks, stretching forward to draw evil eyebrows on the frowning face Dan just drew at a foggy bit of the window with the tip of his index finger. 

Dan starts on something long and fat and quite phallic. “Of course I have.” 

“ _Dan!_ ” Phi gasps, but he draws something similar beside it, a little longer, its balls wildly disproportionate. “Do you like it?” His finger bumps into Dan’s as he draws a straight line going out of its side, then another attached to it from Dan’s. 

“Are they holding hands?” Dan asks incredulously. 

“Duh,” Phil says, wiping his cold, damp finger against Dan’s clothed knee. “Do you like it?” he asks again. 

“Worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Dan laughs. “But oddly… sweet?” He cocks his head to the side to properly assess their window art. 

“I mean playing in the snow.” Phil squeezes his cold hand around his knee. 

“Oh. I haven’t since I was a kid,” Dan says, starting to chew at his bottom lip. 

“Still not answering my question,” Phil says with a few more squeezes between each word. 

“Yeah,” Dan sighs. “Yeah, I loved it.” 

Phil raps his hand against Dan’s leg like it’s a drum a few times, before using it to push himself up entirely. “Come on, let’s go then!” His eyes are a bright, icy blue as he looks down at Dan, hair flopping in his face with a hand outstretched. 

Dan shakes his head, looking from Phil, out to the snow, and back. “We can’t!” 

“Why not?” Phil’s bottom lip pushes out, that puppy-dog expression taking over his face in an instant. 

“It’s blizzarding,” Dan says weakly, barely even a rebuttal at all. It’s impossible to say no to that face. And besides—Dan takes Phil’s hand—there’s really no reason not to. It’s not like they have anything else to do, anywhere else to go. 

This is them making the most of it. 

Phil swaps out his glasses for contacts, nearly making Dan pout as he scrubs at his teeth beside him. He really didn’t know he had a thing for glasses until he turned up at Phil’s door the other day. But perhaps it’s mostly just a thing for Phil. 

Dan runs his fingers through his slept-on mess of curls once his mouth is minty fresh, looking over with a frown when he catches Phil smiling at him. On his way out of the bathroom, he reaches up a hand and musses up the fringe Phil just shook into place. 

“Horrible!” Phil calls as he skips into Phil’s room to open his suitcase. 

“Just bringing you back down to my level,” Dan shouts back. 

“I like your hair like that,” Phil says, much softer, when he appears at the door. 

The sharp zip of Dan’s suitcase rips through the room. “Don’t be a troll,” he says. 

“I’m not.” Dan can hear the pout in his voice—almost enough to believe him. 

They put on real clothes—jeans and two layers of socks each on Phil’s insistence. Dan pulls a jumper over his long sleeved tee, and Phil seems to have taken to a hoodie that doesn’t belong to him, but he pulls out of his wardrobe all the same. 

His cheeks are the same color as the fabric covering his torso as Dan lifts a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. 

“It’s thicker than any of mine,” Phil says, looking down at his feet as he kicks them around, his fingers finding the front pockets of his jeans—not all of them make it in. 

“Looks good on you,” Dan decides, trying to sound casual when he’s anything but. He kicks his open suitcase on the floor closed, not bothering to bend back down to zip it, and dares to look back over at Phil. 

It definitely shouldn’t be possible for a human heart to beat this much. 

“You ready to play in the snow?” Dan asks, so he doesn’t say something stupid like, _I’m in love with you._

Phil’s face lights up, night and day from when he first woke up, and Dan suddenly realizes he’d do _everything_ to make that difference. Including—and not limited to—going outside in a goddamn blizzard, apparently. 

“Yes!” Phil says, bouncing on his feet as he flips the hood of Dan’s hoodie up over his head. Dan turns for the door, but holds out a hand behind him—palm open, fingers wiggling. And it only takes one long stride for it to no longer be empty, Dan tugging Phil down the hall to collect their coats and shoes. 

Even with Phil digging through his closet, they’re really lacking in appropriate snow- er, _blizzard_ attire. Surprisingly though, as Phil pushes open the building’s front door with a grunt at the wind’s resistance, Dan still feels burning heat through his entire body. 

Phil’s fingers had scorched against his neck as they pulled on their coats, fixing Dan’s scarf before pulling up his hood for him while Dan tugged Phil’s zipper the rest of the way. 

His cheeks are already red from the soft intimacy of it all. From the way Phil struggles with the door because he’s still got Dan’s hand in his own. He’s pretty sure all the frigid wind can do now is make the color permanent. 

Not like Phil’s already done that… 

The wind blows the snow right in their faces, Dan cursing as Phil yelps, their shrieks and laughter getting swallowed by the storm as Phil pulls them into the snow. 

“HELLO MANCHESTER!” Phil calls out into the echoey quiet, looking out down the empty street.

Dan is quick to clap a gloved hand to his mouth. “Did you learn _nothing_ from the cave incident?” 

He pulls his hand away when he feels something warm, hot breath against the fabric covering his palm. 

“I’m sure it’s impossible to create an avalanche in the city,” Phil says looking at Dan with nothing but mischief in his eyes. 

“You would find a way Phil, you would find a way.”

There’s something oddly eerie about it, when Phil drops his hand and runs ahead, the snow up to his calves as he trudges through it to the little courtyard beside his building. Everything is covered in white, no cars or other people in sight. The sounds of the once bustling city are all muffled and distorted, like he has to wade through all of the snow just to be able to make it out. 

It makes him feel small, massively insignificant—and also like he’s the only person in the world. 

That is, until there’s a frozen, stinging thump at his left shoulder, the snowball breaking and ricocheting little bits of fluffy snow and ice into the gaps between his fallen hood and scarf. 

“PHI-IL!” he screeches, turning from where he’s wandered into the empty street and running like an absolute giraffe through the thick snow into the courtyard. 

It’s like _they’re_ the only people in the world. 

Dan skids to a stop at the edge of the empty fountain Phil’s on the other side of, dipping down and scooping a large handful of snow into his big hand, patting it into a tight ball between his gloves that have already soaked through. Another snowball flies past his head as he pops up. 

“You dick! That nearly got me in the eye!” he yells as Phil cackles wickedly. Dan throws his snowball with expert aim. The ice that slides down Phil’s rapidly reddening neck shuts him right up. 

It’s the start of a war, of sorts, the two of them chasing each other through the snow, pelting haphazardly packed snowballs back and forth as they tear up all the undisturbed snow. 

“Ow! Fuck!” Phil doubles over after Dan, rightly, lands a snowball directly at his crotch—really only payback for when Phil pelted him in the ass. 

“You deserve it!” Dan laughs as he watches Phil dramatically fall over into the snow—head first, of course. He continues to snort as he wanders over, Phil waving the proverbial white flag with the way he’s near buried himself in the snow. Dan plops himself down in the snow beside him, the damp coldness permeating through his jeans instantly. 

“ _Not_ a fair trade,” Phil mumbles as he rolls over, looking up at the sky with his arms all stretched out, absolutely covered in snow and only collecting more as it continues to fall gently. Dan looks down at him, the snow clinging to his eyelashes slowly melting into his eyes and down his cheeks. 

He’s breathing heavily—they both are—from the chase and the ice in his lungs and the way Phil makes him feel. 

Like everything, always everything and so very right. Warmth in the middle of a snowstorm. Someone Dan wouldn’t mind making one of those shitty, freezing snow forts with, their icy breath fogging the tight space all up while the roof slowly threatens to collapse over them. And that wouldn’t be bad, if it all came crashing down, because it’d be fun to make, them doing it together, and they can always dig each other out. 

Worth it. Definitely. 

Phil’s cheeks and nose are pink, his hair is plastered to the wrong side of his forehead, and Dan’s hood still clinging to his head is starting to fill with bits of snow as Phil works on leaving the print of an angel. He’s the most beautiful person Dan’s ever seen, all squinty eyed at the white sky, laughing like a child on a snow day—not a care in the world that he’s soaked to the bone, that they’re both breathing in tight, ragged puffs of breath from taking in air that’s too cold for their lungs. 

He’s been in love with him from the start, he reckons. He’s wanted to lean over him like this since that very first day. He refused it then, stored it away with all of the other big, impossible things he didn’t want to have to deal with. 

But this. This isn’t _dealing_ with it. Dan knows now, knows with the lift of his very, very fucking cold shoulders, that it’s impossible for him to act like loving a boy- loving _Phil_ is any kind of burden. 

Because this feeling is the best feeling in the world. Looking down at the unabashed joy, ears filled with laughter that’s just for them and no one else in the world, Dan has never felt more sure. 

So when Phil looks away from the sky, eyes brightening with delight as he meets Dan’s, and says, “Come on! Get down here!” Dan does exactly as he’s told. 

He knows, knows Phil means for him to flop back on his back, cover himself completely in snow as he waves his arms and legs back and forth, but Dan cannot fathom a universe in which he doesn’t lean down to kiss Phil. 

It’s inevitable, really. 

“ _Dan_ ,” Phil breathes, their warm breath mixing as he shifts, a wet gloved hand delicately swiping across Phil’s forehead, pushing his fringe back the right way. 

“Hi,” Dan whispers. His fingers follow the side of Phil’s face, caressing his temple, then cheekbone, before settling right in the perfect spot to cup his jaw—like his hands were made for it. His tongue darts out as he tries to remember to breathe, lips wet with the melted snow Phil threw directly at his face. 

_“Dan_ ,” Phil repeats, pleads. His eyes are dark in the white light surrounding them, the shift happening as quickly as it took for Dan to find himself halfway into his lap—a leg slotted between Phil’s, the whole length of his body pressing against his side. 

Dan breathes in deep, letting it burn his lungs as he lets himself fall. Phil shudders, shivers underneath him, pressed between the snow and a slightly terrified Dan. Their foreheads bump first, Dan letting his eyes fall shut as he feels the tip of Phil’s frozen nose brush against his. It sends a chill down his spine, the hand at Phil’s jaw trembles until there’s a firm pressure at his lower back, Phil meeting him there—telling him this is a leap he wants too. 

A bone-melting sigh. Cold pressed, _nuzzled_ into the softness of Dan’s cheek. A puff of breath against Dan’s lips that he can feel in every cell of his body. 

Dan presses down, meets Phil there and does the one thing he’s wanted to do for the past year now. Phil hums into it immediately. His lips are cold, but soft, and he is so, so wiggly. He shifts under Dan, surging up only to pull Dan back down—pull him properly against him in a way that Dan would start to worry about suffocation if he could think about anything other than the feeling of Phil’s lips against his. 

Phil whines, Dan pants, and they kiss like they’ve been doing it for years. Like Phil knows Dan likes the tug at his bottom lip, like Dan knows Phil likes a bit of tongue. It doesn’t feel like a first, but like a coming home. 

They kiss like there’s no one around, like the rest of the world doesn’t matter—and perhaps they’re right for it. 

They kiss until Phil’s rolled them over in the snow thrice over, his angel ruined but replaced with a much better installation: snow packed down in their exact shapes, their exact path. If this were the courtyard of some modern art gallery, Dan would put up a little plaque entitled _Lovers in the Snow._

They kiss until Dan can’t feel his fingers or toes, until they’re both shaking and shivering and ignoring all signs of frostbite to kiss some more. 

They kiss as Phil shifts in Dan’s lap, holding his cold face in his cold hands and pulling him up from the snow. They breathe and gasp and laugh as they don’t stop trying to kiss, little pecks and clacking teeth as they attempt to get up, fumbling and stumbling in the snow. 

Dan walks backwards, hands clung to the front of Phil’s coat while Phil directs him out of the courtyard. Phil’s hands don’t leave his face and his lips barely leave his mouth and Dan’s too overwhelmed to care if they slip and fall and die. 

He’s already in heaven anyway. 

It’s like a switch has been flicked, a bomb’s been set off, and if they stop kissing they’ll surely implode. It’s the most counterproductive journey back to Phil’s door, nearly tripping over the pavement, slipping on snow, _actually_ bumping into a streetlamp—yeah, Dan’s gonna feel that one later. They only part once they’re at the door, Phil frantically patting at his pockets, then Dan’s pockets, with one hand so he doesn’t have to let go of Dan. 

Dan laughs against his lips, leaving a tingling tickle as he ducks his head, sliding his hand into one of Phil’s pockets and procuring his keys. 

Phil kisses him as the door buzzes and clicks. Dan struggles to get the door open, but doesn’t once complain. The lift is a blur, the soft dings of each floor overtaken by Phil’s insistent whines and hums against his mouth, Dan wasting no time in pressing him against the far wall. 

It’s Phil that registers the doors have opened again, stopped at his floor, and he walks Dan back, fumbling with his keys in the door he’s pressed him against. He swallows a whine from Dan’s mouth as he rolls his body against him. And when he gets the key in the lock, he brings both his hands back to Dan's face instead of pushing open the door. 

Dan’s lips tingle in Phil’s absence, he breathes as fast as his heart. Phil is holding him there, looking into his eyes with more clarity that Dan can even comprehend. He tries, breathes with Phil right there in the hall in their soaking wet clothes, hair dripping in their eyes and appendages slowly regaining their feeling. 

With a little whine of a sigh, Dan feels himself melt in Phil’s hands. 

“You want this?” Phil asks, looking between Dan’s eyes with a sense of urgency. 

Dan nods fervently. He licks his lips and remembers he has the ability to use words—maybe, there’s a good chance Phil’s kissed his voice right out of him. 

“ _Phil_.” Dan says his name like it’s meant to be cherished, like it’s the only name he knows. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this for,” he breathes between them, looking back at Phil in a way he hopes can convey just how strongly he feels it. Just how strongly he feels about him, them. 

“I do. God-” Phil presses their foreheads together, lets out an exhale Dan can _feel_ right down to his very core. “Dan, I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO sorry for the wait i don't know why i thought i could write for 13 hours straight on christmas eve eve and not crash the second i stopped to sleep and then christmas eve happened, and then christmas, and i've been trucking away at the end of this since. i updated the chapter count now that i know for sure and i'm gonna be writing into the night to try to get the last chapter done and up asap!!! thanks for hanging in here with me and i hope you're enjoying this lil story <33


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a decent dose of dick at the beginning of this ch so here is your dick warning! (if you would like to skip the dick just hop past the first break!)

They help each other shed wet layers as they go. Shoes left at the door. Unzipped coats. Scarves and gloves peeled away and dropped to the floor. They’re full of shivers and goose bumped skin—not entirely from the cold—and very few seconds pass where they aren’t attached at the lips. 

Phil hums something about a warm shower against Dan’s mouth as they stumble further into his flat. He pulls away to peel the damp red fabric off his body, revealing pink skin underneath, and Dan’s entire mind is clouded with how he can get Phil’s mouth back on his. 

He pulls Phil forward by the front of his tee shirt like it’s his mission, getting a surprised little, _“Oof,”_ in his mouth in response. Dan laughs into it, feeling absolutely out of his mind as Phil’s cold hands slip their way under his hoodie, caught between it and the _not thin enough_ layer of his long sleeve underneath. 

Dan is the one to walk them back. He stops to rid himself of the hoodie all together with an impatient whine, flinging it in the general direction of Phil’s sofa and then pushing him right down the hall. 

Getting out of their jeans is… quite the task. It would be embarrassing if that were at all possible with Phil. They laugh together until they’re wheezing and hiccuping on the tiled floor. The shower steam slowly fills the room, defrosting them the rest of the way as they tug each other out of the stiff fabric that clings to their freezing skin. 

There’s a moment on the floor. Where they’re sat out of breath with their long legs stretched out, Phil’s cold toes pressing against the arches of Dan’s feet. The entire room is now steamed up and the soft pattering of the shower fills their ears. And Phil looks at him with those wide eyes of his, his chest rising and falling in tune with Dan’s own. 

He tilts his head just ever so to the side. “You can go ahead first if it’s too much too soon.” 

“Is it too much for you?” Dan asks. 

Phil shakes his head, messy damp hair flying around with his enthusiasm. 

“It’s not too much for me,” Dan says, pushing up off his bum and walking on his knees over to Phil’s lap. 

Phil is absolutely too much for him. His feelings for Phil are too much, too big. But this? This is exactly what he wants, what he _needs._ He’s spent far too long denying it, denying himself, and denying Phil. And he’s so fucking tired of it. When he looks into Phil’s blown out eyes, he feels like there’s entirely new, fresh air in his lungs and he’s actually breathing without restriction for the very first time. 

Dan takes Phil’s face in his slow warming hands and feels him absolutely melt underneath him as he presses a chaste kiss to his soft lips. 

They get… distracted, Dan pushing himself up on jellied legs when Phil hums something about the water running against his tingling lips. He holds out his hands once he’s up, and Phil takes them easily. The two of them stumble backwards, Phil against Dan’s chest after he pulls him up off the floor. 

The heat doesn’t know where to rush—his cheeks, his chest, his _dick_ —as Dan watches Phil’s horrific Sonic pants fall to the floor. He licks his lips on instinct, fingers paused at his own waistband, and Phil laughs unabashedly, reveling in the way Dan so clearly checks him out. He’s all giggly as he opens the shower door, letting a rush of trapped steam out with it, wrapping around his pale form. Dan’s rendered mostly incapable of anything other than watching his ass disappear into it, shaking his head and unsuccessfully willing away his excitement as he quickly sheds his pants and follows after him. 

Phil steps back from the spray, pushing his dripping hair back off his forehead as he pulls Dan in. He feels like he should be more embarrassed, near aching hard at the mere sight of Phil, at gentle touches at his wrists, up his arms, but one glance down washes any of that away. A soft whine gets swallowed by the patter of the water, Phil’s hands now in his hair, tipping his head back under the stream. 

They communicate in soft hums and glances, nods and careful touches that are leaned into. Dan can’t tell if the hot steam is clearing his brain or fogging it up, but it doesn’t matter either way—it’s nice. All he knows is that it’s nice, and if he could stand here forever—Phil gently foaming honey sweet shampoo into his curls, frequently catching rouge bubbles just before they drip down into his closed eyes—without becoming a complete human raisin, Dan reckons he would. 

Phil steps in close to rinse the conditioner he’s got in Dan’s hair, a shock of soft, warm lips that Dan melts into—until the water makes them splutter and he _definitely_ gets soap in his eye. Nothing about it is productive, probably not all that safe either given their long limbs, the slippery surroundings, and Phil’s track record, but Dan wouldn’t dare call it anything but perfect. 

It’s them. 

He’s much more careful as they swap places, a firm hand at Phil’s shoulder so he doesn’t slip as they move, an _actual_ appropriate amount of shampoo squeezed into the palm of his hand and not half the bottle like Phil. A featherlight caress of Phil’s jaw to tilt him into a kiss _before_ any soap gets involved. 

“Have I ever mentioned how jealous I am of your hair,” Dan hums as he tilts Phil’s head back, watching his Adam’s apple move at the expanse of his throat. Phil makes a soft, acknowledging noise in response, keeping his eyes and mouth closed as Dan runs his fingers through his silky hair over and over. He keeps at it long after the last of the soap runs down the drain, Phil basically purring under his touch. 

Eventually, as Dan’s hands start to wander down his neck, across his broad shoulders, Phil takes a step forward, opening his eyes and lifting a hand to wipe the built up water on his lashes. Reaching around Dan, a hand quickly grabbing at his waist so he doesn’t slip and take them both down, Phil grabs and pops open another bottle. Something a little spiced, a hint of vanilla fills his nose as Phil foams the body wash in his hands and does… well, exactly what the name entails. 

He steps close—simultaneously too close and not close enough—as he rubs soapy circles against Dan’s pink skin. Their bodies start to slip and slide together, definitely a safety hazard but that’s the absolute furthest thought in Dan’s mind as his now soft cock gets interested again. 

Phil too, breathing the steaming air in deeper, sharper, like he keeps forgetting how to breathe. He’s doing nothing more than running his hands down Dan’s chest, over his stomach, but he’s hot and _hard_ pressing against Dan when he brings his arms around to run over his back—not a singular breath of space between them.

Dan’s the one to cave first. His head drops into the wet crook of Phil’s neck as Phil massages his fingers into the dimples at his lower back. Dan presses forward, rolling his hips with intent as he mumbles nonsense into Phil’s skin. The vibration of Phil’s surprised chuckle travels all the way down to his toes, losing his mind further as he loses any last resolve and begs for it. 

“Phil, _please_ ,” Dan says into Phil’s neck, gripping a hand at his upper arm to keep himself from floating right up with the steam. 

“Yeah?” Phil’s voice is lower than he’s ever heard it, rasping with something that makes Dan’s head spin as his hands slide lower and squeeze. 

Dan’s panting, whiny _uh-huh'_ s and _mhm'_ s joining his nonsensical babbling once Phil finally gets a hand on him. He’s floating, he’s sure of it, never before feeling so malleable, so pliant in someone else’s hand. And Phil is making just as much noise as he is in his ear as he gets him off—coos in response, low praise, filthy encouragement that gets him right _there._

Forehead pressing into Phil’s shoulder, the weakening grip at Phil’s arm and Phil’s hands quickly wrapping around him keeping him upright, Dan continues to pant and jolt little shakes, slowly coming down from it. 

“Good?” Phil asks. Dan can _hear_ the smug look plastered on his face. It brings him—somewhat—back down to earth and he lifts his head from Phil’s shoulder to kiss the smirk right off his mouth. 

And when one of Phil’s hands leaves Dan’s side, going to wrap around his still aching dick, Dan doesn’t even think as he bats it away with a huff of a laugh. 

The tips of his fingers are just starting to tingle, and the water is probably about to start running tepid, but he sinks to his knees anyway. They slip only slightly against the wet floor and Dan steadies himself with a firm grip at Phil’s thighs, looking up to blown out blue as his mouth starts to water. 

Phil’s smirk is long gone, residing on Dan’s face for the moment. And he absolutely _loves_ it. 

Dan licks his lips and swallows, clearing his throat a little. His voice is still wrecked as he says an unassuming, “Hey.” 

“Hi,” Phil breathes. A hand finds its way into Dan’s dripping curls, pushing a few straggling strands from his forehead before tangling into it. Dan leans into it before looking back down, smiling. 

“I’m sorry for hitting you in the dick earlier.” Dan miraculously manages a casual tone. Phil’s laugh is stolen from his throat, Dan flicking his eyes up to watch the way Phil’s head drops back as he does the second thing he’s been wanting to do all year. 

Dan’s scrunching a towel in his damp hair—a towel that he actually had to tug away from Phil and his pouty face as he tried to use all _three_ of the ones in the bathroom for himself—leaning against Phil’s door frame as he watches Phil chaotically blow his hair dry. He’s perched at the edge of his bed, the cord tugging from the wall as he shakes the dryer with no rhyme or reason, black hair blowing all about. 

He had pouted when Dan was pulling on fresh clothes. Or, well, fresh pants and joggers—he nabbed Phil’s green hoodie again, justified in the fact that it’s Christmas Eve and green is _festive._ That’s definitely all. Phil had something of the same idea it seemed, all sad eyes and puffy bottom lip after going to retrieve Dan’s hoodie and coming back with the cold, damp fabric in his hands. 

Dan, of course, just rolled his eyes, nodded to his open suitcase and smiled as Phil replaced the towel over his shoulders with one of Dan’s black jumpers. 

The color looks good on him, too good really. His slightly pink pale skin and bright eyes absolutely _glow_ in the contrast of his dark hair and clothes. Phil should wear black more often—or less often, actually, Dan doesn’t think he could handle what it’s doing to his brain if he had _this_ to look all the time. He’s barely hanging by a thread with Phil in his own clothes, to be honest. 

Phil clicks off the hair dryer and calls him over, shuffling closer to the headboard and patting the space on the bed beside him. Dan drops the towel in his hands in Phil’s pile on the floor and flops down on the soft surface, feeling like he could fall asleep in seconds if he fell back and closed his eyes. He hums softly as Phil runs his warmed fingers through his hair, turning the dryer back on and blasting him with hot air. 

Dan reaches out for Phil’s wrist. “Low setting,” he calls over the loud whirring by his ear, angling Phil’s hand away from him. “Curly hair,” he explains once Phil’s clicked it all the way down. 

“Oh, okay,” Phil hums, shifting around so he’s sat cross-legged all pressed up against the side of Dan’s thigh. “What if I was _trying_ to turn you into one of those blow-dried poodles, though?” he asks with a mischievous smile, but he follows the low, gentle heat with even gentler fingers. 

Dan huffs, letting his eyes slip shut. “Don’t have to work very hard to accomplish that, I’m afraid.” He sways towards Phil’s warm body as he tugs a little at his hair. “I still can’t believe you don’t actively straighten yours.”

“Do I have to worry that you’re going to, like, turn my hair into a wig in my sleep or something?” 

Dan hums, low and long in his throat—honestly starting to drift. “Perhaps.” 

“Do I get the Dan hair wig, then? Or will you leave me bald?” 

“Hmm, we will have to see.”

Phil laughs gently in his ear, carrying on with his stylings as they exchange soft words that mostly flow right through Dan’s ears. 

“I feel like play-doh,” Dan says quietly. He’s fully drifted over, his shoulder against Phil’s chest as Phil blows warm air at the same spot over and over. He reckons his hair is mostly dried now, but it’s nice. It’s warm. And he’s sure as hell not pulling away from this. 

“Mmm,” Phil hums. “Have you ever tasted play-doh? I always wanted to eat it.” 

Dan makes a pained noise in his throat, shaking his head as he squeezes his eyes shut tight. “Why why why must it _always_ come back to cannibalism with you?” 

“It’s not cannibalism if you’re play-doh, I don’t think,” Phil says, matter-of-factly. 

Dan opens his eyes, pushes away from him for a brief moment to look at him as he rolls them. Phil retaliates by blowing the warm air right in Dan’s ear. 

“You’re sooooo lucky you’re cute.” Dan grins as he shakes his head, settling back into Phil’s front. 

“I’m cute?” Phil asks, returning to that same, very dry bit of hair. He knows, just from the tone of his voice. Phil knows he’s the cutest goddamn person on planet Earth. He just wants Dan to say it, and how can Dan deny him that? 

“Of course you are, idiot,” Dan says, all fond and full of something _more_. 

“I think you’re cute too.” Phil tugs at a curl, Dan stretches up as much as he can to follow his hand. 

“Oh, this is perfect. We should, like, date or something? Isn’t that what cute people do?” Dan keeps his tone light, as light as he feels, in hopes that he can play it off as joking if Phil pushes him away for it. 

Phil doesn’t, of course. 

“I think so,” he says, running his fingers through Dan’s hair. 

“Mmm,” Dan hums. His heart is suddenly beating far too fast for how melted and calm he feels. 

Phil shuts off the dryer, setting it on the nightstand and giving Dan a nudge until he reluctantly pulls himself up straight. He holds out a hand, and Dan just looks at it with a squint. 

“Sign me up, then,” Phil says, smiling wide.

Dan’s brows furrow as he looks between Phil’s hand and his expectant eyes. “What are you-”

“The boyfriend handshake.” Phil looks down as he wiggles his fingers. Dan’s heart flips right over in his chest. He has to play off his intake of breath with a laugh, a joke, anything. 

“Didn’t you already do that in the shower?” Dan smirks, lifting his brows a few times. 

It takes a second, but then Phil’s tipping his head back and laughing loud. His tongue peeks out between his teeth as he looks back to Dan, a glint in his eye. “Huh,” he says with that silly, lopsided smile of his, “I reckon I did.” 

Dan just grins, biting his own tongue, eyes crinkling at their corners. 

“Come here,” Dan grabs Phil’s hand and pulls him into him, “give me a boyfriend kiss instead.”

The word on his tongue is like a little thrill, jolting down his spine and settling syrupy warm in his chest. But it still pales in comparison to the feeling of Phil’s lips on his. 

“Happy Christmas Eve, Dan,” Phil says once he’s pulled away, a hand fisted at the collar of his hoodie to keep him close. 

Dan bumps their noses, warm against soft, and presses their foreheads together so he can nuzzle into it. Like he couldn’t possibly get closer to Phil, but he so desperately wants to. 

“You too, Phil.” He punctuates it with a peck to the corner of Phil’s mouth. 

They crunch on the rest of Phil’s cereal—straight from the box as their heels tap against the lower cupboards of the breakfast bar—while they wait for the oven to preheat and Phil’s pyramid scheme pizza to cook. The storm continues on beyond the glass wall behind them, and they eat the first pizza directly from the cutting board Phil slides it out on, popping a second one in to cook as they do. 

Phil’s phone rings while Dan’s wiping his crumby hands against his thighs, and he hops off the counter to take it. The floor creaks under foot as Phil paces, making laps on the carpet between the sofa and telly. Hushed voices and disappointed tones fill the small space. Dan’s chest feels tight as he takes out his own phone, tapping a text out to his mum that it looks like they’re stuck for the night again. 

The air in the room has a palpable taste. It’s bittersweet on Dan’s tongue. 

Dan pulls out their second pizza when the timer goes off, shuffles around Phil’s kitchen to locate wine glasses and grab the half-full bottle of wine from the fridge. He fills their glasses, finishing off the bottle, and slices the pizza into such perfect triangles he honestly feels compelled to take a picture of it. 

Phil’s voice goes a little shaky, dies down altogether by the time Dan’s stepping into the lounge, a glass of wine in each hand. 

“Alright?” Dan asks gently, setting them down on the coffee table and crouching down in front of where Phil’s sat on the sofa—his glasses on his forehead and the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes. 

Phil makes a little noise, sniffs, and pulls his hands from his face. A crack forms in Dan’s heart at the budding redness at his eyes, at the slight downturn of his mouth. He puts a hand on his knee, looking up at him without the faintest idea what to do, what to say. 

“Yeah,” Phil sighs deeply. A hand clasps over Dan’s, squeezing slightly. “I’m fine.” 

Dan frowns, the crack spreading.

“Want to cry into a slice of pizza?” he offers, only knowing of the little comforts he can provide. If he could go out there right now and stop the storm, plough the entire way to Phil’s parent’s himself, he would in an instant. 

But for now, this is all they can do. Just the two of them, trying to find the good things in waiting it out. 

Phil does smile at that, huffing a soft little laugh from his nose. “Yeah, pizza tears. That sounds nice.” 

“Coming right up!” Dan squeezes his knee and pushes himself back up. Before turning to the kitchen, he grabs one of the wine glasses and hands it off to Phil, who takes it gladly. He brings the whole damn cutting board in again, and doesn’t even say anything as he walks in to Phil tipping back his wine glass. After he sets the pizza down, he takes the empty glass from Phil, replacing it with the big glass of water he just poured for this exact reason. 

“Thank you,” Phil hums, both hands wrapping around the cold glass. 

“Do you want me to put on a Christmas film?” Dan asks before he sits down. 

“Yes please.” Phil nods his head, pouting slightly. Dan wants to just… bend over and ruffle his fingers through his fringe, push it up off his forehead and press a kiss there. 

He realizes he can. So he does. And then he goes and puts Phil’s _Die Hard_ DVD into the player, because Phil says he wants to watch _Die Hard._ Says it is most definitely a Christmas movie. 

Dan doesn’t care if it is or not, doesn’t need the justification—he’d put on fucking _Twilight_ if it would make Phil happy—but he likes the way Phil’s voice goes brighter as he starts to explain why. 

_Home Alone 3_ is ignored on the screen in front of them. By now, all the remaining light has been taken from the sky, leaving only that chilling dull white glow in the darkness out the window. The Scrabble board Phil pulled out sometime during the first _Home Alone_ is lit only by the twinkling of the tree and the soft light from the kitchen that leaks into the rest of the room. 

They’re not even really playing an actual game anymore, Phil all huffy and adorable after Dan beat him twice. It’s mostly his fault for agreeing that Pokémon names are allowed, not knowing Dan’s extensive knowledge and absolute hound’s nose for perfectly placed triple word squares. They’re playing something Phil says he’s workshopping as _Phil-ble_ now, something ridiculous that involves both of them on the same side of the coffee table, allowances for cheating when it’s Phil, and lots and lots of kisses. 

With Phil’s mouth at his neck, having just declared himself the winner of _Phil-ble_ for the sixth time in a row, Dan reckons Phil’s got a real career in game development. He could play this one for _years_ , lifetimes even, and never tire of it. 

“I give up,” Dan laughs, pulling Phil with him as he falls back against the sofa. He stretches out his legs, asleep and all tingly from sitting in one position on the floor for so long. 

“You don’t want to try one more all or nothing?” Phil asks, all smug. He untangles himself from Dan’s side and swings a leg over his lap, finding a seat in Dan’s thighs. 

“Oh you just want to win _again_.” Dan runs his hands up Phil’s sides, links his fingers comfortably at his lower back, shivering slightly at how _right_ it all feels. Phil in his lap. Phil in his jumper with lips bitten pink. Phil laughing in his face with his slightly cold hands on his shoulders, at his neck. Phil—in general. He just feels so fucking right. 

As if he’s in Dan’s mind—probably is—Phil sits back, bum on Dan’s knees, and looks at him with a little purse of his lips. That same look when he’s concentrating, mulling something over, or about to do something really fucking stupid with a perfect die roll during D&D. 

“How long… for you?” Phil asks, looking almost uncertain of his question despite Dan instantly knowing exactly what he’s asking. 

“First day I think.” Dan clears his throat, ducks his head as he feels new warmth at his cheeks—now he’s the hesitant one. “I don’t think I wanted to accept that then, though. You know you were actually the first out gay person I’d ever really met?” He looks up at Phil with a shy smile. 

Something soft flashes across Phil’s face, settling there as his eyes go all big and wide, sparking even though Dan’s the one facing the twinkling tree. 

“Charlotte too, right?” Phil asks in a low voice, his fingers playing with the hair at the back of Dan’s neck. 

“Yeah, I guess.” Dan breathes deep, pushing back into the touch. “Well, not really. Wasn’t it, like, two weeks or so of her sussing me out before she mentioned a girlfriend?” Dan recalls. “And you _literally_ introduced yourself to me day one with, ‘ _Hi, I’m Gay- I mean Phil! I’m Phil,'''_ Dan says in a heavy, over-exaggerated imitation of Phil’s accent. 

Phil lets go of his hair to whack at his shoulder. “I do not sound like that!” 

_“I do not sound like that_ ,” Dan mimics him in a _perfect_ copy of his accent, falling right into laughter at Phil’s put out, pouty face. 

“Shut up,” Phil laughs, pushing at his shoulder only to drop his face there, the two of them riding out their giggles and wheezy cackles there. 

Phil’s cheeks are tinged pink when he pushes away to look back at Dan. He’d say it’s from his breathless laughter, but his eyes flick down, hiding behind his hair.

“Seriously though?” Phil asks, all soft and quiet. Dan lifts a hand to his face, heart racing as he brushes his fringe out of the way and tilts his chin—Phil going easily under his touch. 

All he does is nod, keeping his hold on Phil’s soft eyes. 

“Wow,” Phil breathes. Dan hums, pushes forward to press a kiss to his lips. 

“What about you?” Dan asks, liking the way Phil’s soft skin feels under his fingers, loving the way he shuffles forward to get closer as he trails his hand down his neck. “How long has it been for you?”

“Same day,” Phil says easily. He arches his back, stretching and pushing into Dan’s touch. Dan rubs featherlight circles into his skin with the pad of his thumb. “The second I saw you.” Phil nods, remembering with a dopey smile. “Reckon that’s why I was so keen to vomit gay all over your shoes. Fit guy showing up to play make believe with us.” 

Dan shakes his head, huffing as he smiles. How does Phil always manage to make something so grim sounding actually cute? 

Phil is twirling one of Dan’s rouge curls around his finger. Dan isn’t at all starting to think that the curls might be good if it means he gets this treatment. Definitely not. 

“I just- I really liked you, and I didn’t want to assume, you know? And it’s also assuming to just think you were straight so I’ve just been… over here… pining.” 

An involuntary noise leaves Dan’s throat, something all high and surprised and… cute. 

“What’s that like?” Dan asks, wading through how fucking _enamoured_ he is with Phil to get to the curiosity. He genuinely can’t even fathom being as open and unabashed as Phil—and if it feels anything like the way he feels right now, he’d really like to get there. 

“Pining after your best friend?” 

“No idiot,” Dan snorts, all fond. “I know what that’s like.” 

Delight washes over Phil’s face. Dan is barely able to process it as he surges forward, eyes all lit up like the Christmas tree before kissing the absolute life out of him. 

“You know, I don’t think we’ll ever get anything productive done now that we’re like this,” Dan breathes between them, his hands sliding up under his jumper, making Phil shiver. 

Phil laughs. “I’m not sorry.” 

“Me either,” Dan grins. He means it. He splays his hand against Phil’s back, rubbing gently. “I was talking about the whole being able to just blurt out that you’re gay thing.” Dan huffs a laugh, “It was literally like three seconds, Phil.” 

“Oh!” Phil frowns a little, the one where his brows pull together, thinking. _Cute_ , Dan thinks. “I guess I’m not usually that loud, even though I’ve pretty much been out since Uni. You were just-” Phil’s eyes soften as he looks at him, corrects himself. “You _are_ just…” he trails off, mouth opening but not quite making words. He settles on a hand at the side of Dan’s face, a smile that’s contagious, and a thumb that dips into the dimple in Dan’s cheek. 

“Yeah,” Phil breathes, “you’re yeah. And, like, you know how the gang is now—there’s a lot of safety in that. John would’ve tossed you flying to the other end of the city if you were, like, a massive homophobe to me or something.” 

Dan chuckles at that. It would never happen, but knowing John it definitely _could._

“Yeah, I guess so. It must be nice. Er- It is nice, I reckon,” Dan corrects himself. Because he feels it, he knows it now, the comfort of a safe space—of surrounding himself with safe people. It was never intentional, merely the right place at the right time, but he wouldn’t change it for the world. 

“I don’t think-” Dan looks into Phil’s eyes, stops his movements at his back to just simply _hold_ him. “I don’t think I’d be where I’m at now, if it wasn’t for finding all of you.” 

“ _Dan._ ” Phil melts, his voice cracking as his bottom lip starts to wobble. “You’re going to make me cry, and I’m already like,” Phil lets go of Dan’s hair to press it against his own cheek, “all wet eyes and stuff.” Dan immediately envelops him in a hug, pulling him completely to his chest and holding him tight. 

“I’m sorry.” Dan moves to press kisses into Phil’s hair, his face tucked into his neck. “Think I just love you guys a lot,” Dan’s voice cracks, feeling the moisture welling in his eyes as well. 

It’s candid, but it means so much more. 

“We love you too,” Phil says softly, lifting his head from Dan’s neck. The cool air with the absence of Phil’s warm breath makes Dan shiver, the wetness of shed tears staining his skin. “And don’t apologize,” Phil sniffs, bumping their foreheads together with a little huff of a laugh. “This is literally the best thing to ever happen to me. Having you here.” He kisses away the tear that rolls down Dan’s cheek. 

Dan doesn’t even know why he’s crying, he’s just overtaken with it—too many big feelings for a heart he never thought was big enough. 

“It’s just shit under these circumstances,” Phil says. 

Dan hums. “You’re really close to them. Yeah? Your family?” 

Phil nods, his lips pressing together as he frowns. “Yeah, I’ve never spent a Christmas without. I know they aren’t that far, and it isn’t like I haven’t seen them recently, but… it’s hard, you know?” 

Dan sighs, lets out a pathetic little laugh as he rubs at Phil’s back. “Not really, not personally. But I can see how down it’s got you.” 

Phil’s frown deepens. “Do you like-”

“Want to talk about it?” Dan shakes his head. “No, not really. I already feel like such a dick for mostly feeling fucking relieved that we’re stuck here—don’t wanna make you feel any worse.”

“ _Hey_.” Phil’s hand is at his face, thumb brushing against his cheek until he meets his eye. “Your feelings are still valid, no matter how I feel. Different people, different experiences, yeah?” 

“Hm,” Dan hums, tilting his head to the side, pressing into Phil’s touch until he’s holding the weight of his head in his hand. “Yeah,” he agrees. Because deep down he knows Phil is right. It doesn’t rid him of his guilt, but it takes some of the pressure off, the tight tangles in his chest loosening. 

So he asks Phil if he wants to talk about it, if he wants to just word and emotion vomit until maybe that release makes it feel better—a little less shit. 

“Like a refreshing vom in a potted plant after a night of drinking?” Phil asks, a glint in his wet eyes. 

“I fucking hate you,” Dan says, all fond, as he shoves at Phil’s shoulder only to pull him right back to his chest. “I can’t get emotional with you now, sorry, too much hatred in my soul for Phil Lester right now. Come back later.” It’s an interesting choice of words for a guy pressing soft kisses all over the side of his face, not letting Phil go as he wiggles around in his lap in protest. 

It’s all in jest—so very them. And Dan finds himself setting free his own vomit in front of Phil for the second time, this time in words instead of peppermint vodka and chips. 

It doesn’t necessarily feel _good_ to get it all out there, but it feels right. The word would probably be cathartic—to talk to someone other than his therapist, someone whose job isn’t to listen, analyze, and solve, but to just simply _care._

Care for wanting to care. And listening for wanting to listen. It’s a two-way street, one that they choose to take together, and it starts to feel like a whole lot more than a simple connection. 

It’s exhaustion seeping into his bones at half past seven in the evening, Phil slumped against his shoulder with wet cheeks and a heavy heart. They both seem to not subscribe to too much too soon, and something about that makes Dan feel so _sure._

Phil hiccups and Dan sniffs. He turns to take Phil’s face in his hands, gently wiping away the wetness under his eyes and following it with one, two kisses at the fragile skin there. Phil blinks slowly and Dan feels the way he melts under him, holding his tired body up completely. 

“ _Hey there_ ,” Dan says as gently as his touch, voice barely above a whisper. “You want to go lie down?” 

Phil lets out a little broken hum, nodding in Dan’s hands. 

“Alright,” Dan moves them around so he can pull them up, “let’s go.” Phil yawns once he’s up, stumbling slightly with the force of it and swaying into Dan’s side. “I’ve got you,” Dan babbles in a low voice as they both lean into each other, making a slow journey out of the lounge. 

Out the window, the snow looks like it’s finally starting to wind down—but Dan doesn’t have the heart to get Phil’s hopes up, to point it out just to find it’s a trick of the evening sky. He hopes though, puts a thought out into a universe that can be both very kind and very cruel, that just this once it could do him a solid and give Phil exactly what he wants for Christmas. 

Because Dan’s already got his gift. It’s Phil’s turn now. 

He pulls Phil closer to his side and tugs him down the hall, shaking the outside world from his mind until there’s nothing but the two of them—and the incredibly important objective of getting Phil cozy in bed. 

“Where are your shirts? Do you want me to get you a shirt?” Dan peeks in Phil’s wardrobe, turns to start rifling through dresser drawers. 

“Top drawer, but ‘m cosy,” Phil says from his upright swaying position by the bed—had mumbled something about _waiting for Dan_ when Dan told him to sit himself down. 

“You don’t want a shirt?” Dan turns, looking to the sleepy figure and feeling his heart grow three sizes in his chest. “Are you sure? What about pants?” Dan turns back to the dresser. “Let’s get you in something clean and fresh.” 

“Calling me dirty?” 

Dan snorts. “That’s it.” Before he can even turn with the bright fabric he just grabbed in his hand, there are arms wrapping around his waist, a chin digging into his shoulder. 

“I’m fine, Dan. You’re being sweet, but I’d like to sleep in this.” 

Dan turns in his arms, a glance at his jumper hanging on Phil’s frame, his pale legs peeking out as he’s dropped his joggers, his stupid fucking comic book printed pants stretched around his thighs. 

“Won’t be too warm?” Dan tugs at the hem of his jumper. Phil shakes his head adamantly. 

“I’ll be perfectly warm, exactly how I like it.” 

“Yeah, alright,” Dan smiles, starting to walk them backwards towards the bed. “Want me to tuck you in?” 

Phil’s eyes sparkle in the low light of his nightstand lamp. “Yes, please.” 

Doing exactly that—because he’s never been in the business of denying Phil Lester—Dan walks him back, pulls at the corner of Phil’s lazily made bed, and dips him down with a kiss. He goes as far as pulling away, Phil’s fingers sliding from the back of his neck and falling down to the duvet with a soft rustle, to make his way around the the bed, tucking under the length of his body, down his legs, to his wiggly feet. Phil giggles the whole way. 

“Need anything else?” Dan asks, low, hovering by Phil’s side of the bed. Phil looks up at him with slow-blinking eyes, smiling loosely. His hair has taken permanent residence pushed up off his forehead, if only for Dan to press his lips there. He looks beautiful like this, all his edges softened. It’s just the two of them, no pretenses or walls to hide behind. 

Dan doesn’t need a perception check to _feel_ the look on his face, deep at the very core of his chest. 

“You,” Phil says simply. Dan chuckles, patting at the bed. “Oh,” Phil’s sleepy eyes go brighter as he shifts up the headboard a little, “actually…” 

“Yeah?” 

“In the cupboard by the fridge,” Phil starts, innocently enough, “behind the coffee…”

Dan huffs, crossing his arms as he smiles. “Mhm…” 

“Is a tin of hot chocolate…” Phil looks up at him, all wide, pleading, puppy-dog eyes. Dan’s already halfway to the door. 

Phil calls after him, “And the-” 

“Marshmallows in the other cupboard?” Dan cuts him off. “Yeah I’ve got it!” 

“Thank you!”

Dan just shakes his head to himself, far too content for his own damn good. Humming to himself while the water boils, Dan tidies away the games on the coffee table, flicks off the telly, and stretches around the tree to unplug it. The room dims, just the warm light from the kitchen and the odd glow out the window. He steps towards the glass, lets a shiver roll down his spine as he cups a hand to it, squinting as he peers out to take stock of the weather. 

He could be wrong, but the snow definitely seems to be breaking. It’s more of a gentle fall than the outright blizzard it’s been, and Dan jumps when the kettle starts to hiss, pulling him out of the trance he hadn’t realized he slipped into. 

Two steaming hot chocolates in hand, in colorful mugs and with quite possibly the legal limit for marshmallows the human body can handle piled atop one of them, Dan pads back to Phil’s room. He clicked off the kettle, the kitchen light, double-checked the lock on the front door. Everything is quiet, washed in a hush, and the only light that remains leaks out from Phil’s open door. 

“Thank you,” Phil hums, making slow grabby hands at the mug that is so clearly his. He sips before even testing the temperature, Dan rolling his eyes as he sets his down to pull off his hoodie. “I feel exhausted, but my mind won’t stop racing,” Phil says. Dan tugs on the shirt he swiped from Phil’s dresser, gives about two seconds of thought before dropping his joggers as well—maybe now he’ll stop feeling warm all over. 

“The sugar will definitely help,” he says sarcastically, turning back to the bed to retrieve his own mug. 

“Oops,” Phil hums from around the lip of his mug, his glasses going the slightest bit foggy from its steam. 

“Reckon you’re allowed, it is Christmas.” 

“It is,” Phil says sadly, looking up at Dan with a tug of his lips that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I rarely go to sleep this early, anyway.” He shrugs.

“Do you…” Dan bites at his lip, glancing at Phil’s bookshelves on the other side of the room, cogs whirring in his brain. Despite the exhaustion heavy in his bones, he doesn’t think he’ll be falling asleep anytime soon either. “Would you like me to read you something, or I could go get your laptop and we can watch another film?”

“A book might be nice,” Phil hums. “Tired eyes.” 

Dan nods, wandering over to the disorganized shelves.

“Do you have anything you want me to read?” he asks as he looks over them. Mostly more DVDs, some Dungeons and Dragons handbooks Dan’s flipped through in the shop more than a few times, a _lot_ of Stephen King. Dan chuckles, all fond with his fingers at _Pet Sematary_ ’s spine as he turns back to Phil. 

Fucking _weirdo._

Phil’s shaking his head at him, brows all tugged together as he strains his eyes to look past Dan. 

“Have you ever read _Hamlet_?” Dan asks. “I brought it with me for the train, and to avoid my family,” he says with a laugh. “But I’ve barely cracked into it.”

Phil hums. “Maybe,” he says, holding his mug up to his lips as he thinks. “Probably just skimmed through it in University.” 

Dan laughs, shaking his head, huffing, “ _Okay_ , Mister Linguistics and Language degree,” as he makes his way over to his own bag. 

“It’s Mister _English_ Language and Linguistics degree to you.” 

“Alright, Sir Language-” 

“Ooo,” Phil is quick to interrupt, honestly sounding a little _too_ delighted. “Say that again.” 

“Wot?” Dan asks, his head in his bag, digging through it until he reaches the book that’s made its way to the bottom. 

“The, uh-” Dan pops back up, looking to Phil with a confused squint as he taps the book against his palm. “The thing,” Phil settles on. It’s definitely not just the warm lighting that’s casting pink on his cheeks. 

Dan back tracks, thinks for a moment as he continues to softly tap the book in his hand, then lets out a loud bark of a cackle when he realizes. 

“Oooof,” he wheezes, only spurred on more by Phil’s meek slink down the headboard. “Not unpacking that right now,” he says as he approaches Phil’s side of the bed.

Hitting the general area of Phil’s thigh a few times with the poor library book, Dan says, “Budge over so I can have the light, _Sir_.” 

“ _Shut uuup_ ,” Phil’s words dissolve into a whine of a groan as he buries his beet red face in the sheets before doing as he’s told. 

“A real Shakespeare guy, huh?” Phil teases, bumps his shoulder into Dan’s to hand him his empty mug once he’s settled into Phil’s warm spot. He takes it easily, sets it on the nightstand, and sighs softly as Phil tries to wiggle up into his side. Dan stretches his arm around him, Phil shifting until he’s all tucked up at his side, head resting on his chest. It takes a minute to get situated, but when they do, it works perfectly. Dan cracks open the well-worn book and clears his throat. 

“Want me to start from the beginning?” 

“Wherever you left off is fine, I know the gist.” 

“Alright.” Dan flips to the early page with the folded in corner, pressing out the crease with his thumb.

“Dan?” Phil hums, head shifting as he looks up. 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you do the voices?” 

“Of fucking course I’m doing the voices, who do you take me for?” 

Phil laughs, the sound rattling against Dan’s chest. “Right. Just making sure.” 

Dan switches to holding the book in one hand, settling the other in the soft mess of Phil’s hair, before proceeding to bust out his absolute _killer_ Horatio. 

“ _Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement_ ,” Dan yawns, blinking hard and holding his eyes wide on the page as he tries to get through. 

There’s no real concept of time as he reads, not rushing through it as he usually would, and with the short pauses of Phil laughing softly, correcting Dan on a few pronunciations of words. He does the voices, all but flinging his arms around to act along. Running his free hand through Phil’s hair, scratching softly as he pushes into it, definitely keeps the theatre kid at bay. 

He feels himself waning, though, humming lines much softer by the time he gets to the third scene of the first act—not even that far in. His tongue flubs a few words, and he's lost Phil’s corrections to a few grunts and hums, until it’s just Dan’s low voice and Phil’s quiet, rhythmic breathing. 

Dan yawns again, taking his hand from Phil’s hair to rub at his eye. “ _This above all: to thine ownself be true_ ,” he yawns, eyes only watering more. He knows most of this anyway, can pull it from the shifting words on the page. “ _And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man._ Think you’re losing me, Phil,” Dan breaks with a chuckle, staving off a yawn. 

With a lift of his book and a little duck of his head, Dan huffs softly to himself again. “I’ve lost you too, huh?” he whispers fondly. His eyes flick back to the page. “ _Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!”_ he reads before closing the book. “And I, too, humbly take my leave, my lord,” he chuckles softly to himself as he sets it on the nightstand. 

Dan stretches slightly, rolling his neck with a soft groan. 

“Hey bub,” he breaks through the quiet, ruffling a hand in Phil’s hair. He drops it to his shoulder, giving it a little shake when Phil shifts, starts to go all whiny. “There he is,” Dan laughs when Phil looks up at him blearily—a little angrily. 

It’s so fucking cute. 

“You want to brush your teeth?” 

“Mmmm,” Phil buries his face in Dan’s stomach, “brush them for me.” 

Dan chuckles, hand finding Phil’s hair again. “Listen, I love you, but I don’t think we’re there yet.” 

Phil makes a soft noise, his arm squeezing around Dan’s middle as he curls up that impossible bit closer. “Dan loves me,” he says into his shirt. 

“Mhm.” He does—so very much. Dan lets out a huff of a laugh in his own exhausted delirium—sure Phil won’t remember a thing. Sure he’s already asleep, just talking from his dreams. 

“I’m gonna go do mine, okay?” Dan tries to shift, but Phil clings tighter. 

“Nooooooo,” Phil mumbles from somewhere against Dan’s rib cage. “Warm.”

A deep, exasperated—but fond—sigh fills the room. Dan stretches over and clicks off the lamp, reveling in the soft noise it elicits from Phil, the groggy pressing of lips he can feel through his shirt as a half-asleep Phil kisses anything he can reach over and over and over. 

Dan just smiles wide as he slides down into the bed, Phil only loosening his hold to get comfortable again. 

“I swear to god if I get a cavity because of you Philip Lester-” 

“Goodnight Dan, I love youuu,” Phil slurs, pressing his face to Dan’s cheek like he was intending on giving him a kiss but fell asleep halfway through. 

The quiet that fills the room only strengthens that theory.

Dan settles his head into the plush pillow and cards a hand through Phil’s hair, feeling the heavy weight of him at his side, head nuzzled into his neck. Their legs are all tangled together, Dan unable to differentiate where either of them end as he starts to drift. 

Perhaps they don’t end at all. 

“Love you too.” It’s said to the air, to the softly snoring body pressed against him. And with it, Dan succumbs to sleep—knowing, for tonight, his dreams couldn’t possibly be warmer than reality. 

  
  


***

A blaring alarm— _no,_ ringtone?—seeps into Dan’s dreams. He grumbles, stirring slightly, trying to ignore the repetitive noise in his ears to sink back into the sleep his body is clinging to. He does, start to drift, but then there’s a groan in his ear, a heavy limb smacking around his chest. 

“Wha- _oof!_ ” The sound is punched from his lungs, Phil _fully_ clambering over him to get to his phone on the nightstand. There’s a near knee to dick, a heavy weight on his stomach, and—somehow—a mouth full of hair as Phil retrieves it. 

“Sorry, sorry. Good morning.” Phil stops on his way back to press an uncoordinated kiss to the corner of Dan’s mouth. “Sorry,” he says again, flopping back down beside Dan. Dan, who’s now actually able to take in a breath without the crushing pressure of Phil at his lungs. “It’s my mum.” Phil gestures to the phone as he finally accepts the call, stopping the loud ringing, and he presses it to his ear as he makes quick work of magnetizing himself to Dan’s side again. 

Tuning in and out of half of their conversation, Dan yawns, stretches, then pushes his face into Phil’s shoulder, humming softly as he lets his eyes shut. He breathes in deep, taking in all the warmth, melting entirely when he feels an arm wiggle around between them, seeking his hand. He lets Phil take it, and instantly feels a whole onslaught of squeezes that prompt him to actually absorb the words floating around his ears. 

“Really?” he hears Phil ask excitedly, squeezing his hand like goddamn morse code. “He’s-” Phil stops, Dan lifts his head from his shoulder to look up at him. 

“Yeah, uh- yeah, I’ll tell him!” Phil’s eyes are bright, though squinting slightly as he smiles wide at him. Dan leans back, batting his hand around until he grips around Phil’s glasses. 

“Okay!” Phil is saying as he hands them to him. He mouths a _thank you_ as he slides them on—nearly poking himself in the eye. Dan couldn’t be more fond. “Soon?” Phil hums a few times, then does a little wiggle, using his free hand to clap excitedly against Dan’s bare arm. 

“Okay see you soon byeeeee,” he rushes out all at once, the phone instantly flung to the end of the bed as Phil tackles Dan against the pillows. 

It’s confirmed with a glance outside, once they’re finally able to pull apart and come up for air. The snow apparently stopped falling at around four a.m, and, according to Phil’s mum, they’re finally starting to catch up with ploughing all the less essential roads—meaning his parents can come get him within the next hour or so. 

Phil says it’s a miracle, Dan says there’s no such thing. 

But whatever it is, it means _everything_ to Phil—and in turn, it starts to mean everything to Dan. 

Phil wipes at his cheeks with the sleeve of Dan’s jumper and presses himself right into Dan’s shoulder, nosily looking at his phone screen as he checks the train alerts. 

“They’re expecting the tracks to be cleared by the evening,” Dan says, scrolling until he gets to the first available train. 

Phil hums, pressing further into his side to get closer to Dan’s phone. He reaches out a finger to tap at the same green link that Dan’s thumb is hovering over. 

“You could rebook for the first one at nine, and we could drive you back to the station tonight,” Phil says slowly. “Or…” he looks up at Dan, blue eyes shining in the early morning light.

“Or?” Dan lifts a brow, smiling softly. 

“Or you could tell your mum you can’t seem to get a spot on it. All full up,” Phil says innocently. “Could tell her you’ll just have to take the next one in the morning.” 

“You want me to stay for Christmas?” 

“If you’d like.”

“I’d like,” Dan decides, as simple as that. 

“Yeah?” Phil’s smile goes wider, crinkling the corners of his eyes. 

“Think it’d be quite nice to spend Christmas with you,” Dan hums, tilting his chin to press a kiss to Phil’s hairline. 

It feels like they already have, to be honest. And it’s definitely quite selfish, doing what he wants rather than what might be expected of him. But Dan wants to be selfish, wants to choose the path he takes—no matter how trivial. 

What really is the difference, anyway? Arriving back in Wokingham in the middle of the night, or the next break of day… It won’t make a difference to his family—he knows that to be true—but it’ll make all the difference to him. 

With Phil in the crook of his shoulder, he books the morning train then and there. 

“My family is going to love you,” Phil says between kisses, sat in Dan’s lap with his face in his hands—still in bed when they both really should be getting up, packing their things. 

But it’s Christmas, Dan reckons they’re allowed. 

“I love you.” Dan’s heart beats right out of his chest as the words brush against Phil’s lips. Phil smiles, Dan feeling it more than he sees it—so intently focused on the swirling blue of Phil’s eyes. 

“I know,” Phil replies, smirking now. 

“You-” Dan chokes on air as he bats at Phil’s shoulder, Phil absolutely bursting with giggles. “You _were_ awake! God, you shit!” 

Dan does go on—fond mutterings and shakes of his head, screeches to Phil’s loud laughter as they roll around the bed, jabbing and tickling and wrestling until air is hard to come by. 

The snow doesn’t fall outside, and the city beyond Phil’s window starts to wake again as Dan cackles and Phil threatens Dan with whatever _the true spirit of Christmas_ is—hilariously threatening for a man who has just pinned him down and lifted his shirt only to blow raspberries against his warm skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so on the eve of dan and phil forever home-ing, and not actually christmas but feeling much like it, this story finally comes to and end.  
> I really hope you enjoyed!!! This was definitely a test of... i don't even know what.. me fucking... being out of my mind and writing over 60 thousand words in a month???????? but it's been fun!!! and i really, really love these boys and this story and i'm going to be thinking about all their future d&d games forever, really.  
> thank you so much for reading, if you came along <333 it really meant the world to me & i have the biggest, fattest love for everyone that just made this happen, because i sure as hell don't feel like i did it alone <3333 so thank you :)
> 
> if you'd like to [reblog on tumbr](https://sierraadeux.tumblr.com/post/636337581380042752/when-the-weather-breaks-a-full-story-by-christmas) or just come bug me that's where i am!


End file.
